KARACHI: City Mayor Wasim Akhtar on Tuesday said that Karachi was the revenue engine of the country, but the resources collected from the city were not spent on its development.

He said this while reviewing the firefighting measures on the lith floor of a building near I.I.

Chundrigar Road where the fire erupted.

The mayor said he had been approaching all forums to arm thebrigade department with all necessary and latest technologies for three and half a year, but the federal government didn`t provide them with fire engines and other equipment.

He said that casualties or big property loss was not reported due to timely efforts of experienced firemen.

He said that firefighters didn`t ñnd it difñcult to reach the lith floor of the building with the help of snorkel and speedily extinguished the blaze.

The mayor hailed the firefighters` ef forts and said that they were doing excellent job despite having limited resources.

Responding to a question, he said that there were no proper residencies for families of fireñghters as their residential units were in a very dilapidatedcondition.

`I have written many letters to thefederaland the Sindh governments and asked them to repair the residencies of the fire brigade employees but to no avail.

However the federal government had promised to give fire engines and modern equipment,` he added.

Expressing concern over increasing number of high-rise buildings in the city, the mayor said that the hre brigade did not have the capability to extinguish fires over the lith floor.

Road carpeting The mayor also reviewed road carpeting work at Sindhi Hotel New Karachi which was developed by MNA belonging to Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan Hafiz Osama Qadri from his funds.

Mr Akhtar said that the road was in dire need of repair work and the people had been facing many problems due to this.

He expressed gratitude to the MNA for utilising his funds for `right`reason.

The mayor also met locals who informed him about issues of the area.

Hafiz Osama Qadri said that major role of parliamentarians was to legislate for welfare of the people, suggesting that elected local government representatives should be assigned the task to carry outupliftworks.

`The local bodies are backbone of the city and devolving powers at grassroots level is essential for development of the city and the country,` he added.