WHOEVER thinks that the issue of garbage cleaning in the city of Karachi is as old as the advent of smanphones, well, that`s not true.

From the time the Sindh capital`s demographic chan began to go pear-shaped, that is, in the 1960s when migration from across the border and upcountry was at its peak, both old and relatively new localities have been dotted with garbage dumps. The difference is that the city administration that called the shots 50 years back did not reson to knee-jerk reactions to media repons. It was proactive. In the 1960s the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) had more than 150 refuse vans (trash trucks) that kept moving around the city to remove trash and junk. But then seldom do we have a situation where large organisations keep functioning for a long time without one administrative hiccup or another.

On April 15, 1967 the KMC building on Bunder Road (now M. A.

Jinnah Road) suffered a two-and-ahalf hour siege by 160 refuse vans, brimming with rubbish, with the stinkrising above the office block. Why? The siege followed a strike by the refuse van drivers who were protesting against the misbehaviour of their officers.

Thankfully, the matter did not go on for an inordinate period otherwise the awful stench of garbage could have caused suffocation to KMC employees. Mind you, the corporation used to be pretty health conscious.

On April 11, the health conscious KMC resumed its Operation Spring, for the fourth time, to rid the city of flies and mosquitoes. The operation, which began in March, had been interrupted first by torrential rains and then by a lack of funds. The corporation`s health depanment restahed the campaign after the KMC council sanctioned an amount of Rs123,120.

The KMC was not the only organisation to catch the newspapers` attention at that point in time. The city`s traffic police, too, had come up with an interesting campaign called `dip your lights` which it was running through different media. On April 14, they released a statement in which they appealed to motorists driving at night to `dip your lights`. Theirspokesman said six of 10 fatal accidents took place at night because of dazzling headlights and speeding. The police advised motorists to be more `careful after 10pm when the traffic police are off`.

On the subject of traffic, on April 10, the district council started laying traffic island parks in Malir Colony for which a supervisor had already been appointed. This was being done in an effon to give Malir a `new look`. The council had reserved Rs20,000 for development and maintenance of the parks in the colony. One of the under-way projects in the Karachi district was the carpeting of roads in Malir at a cost of Rs10,000.

Now let`s talk about the colourful cultural life of our beloved city. An exhibition of the Dacca-born painter Mubinul Azim at the Pak-American Cultural Centre was the talk of the town that week.

He had put on display his latest set of 40 oil paintings. Apan from landscapes, he exhibited eight abstract artworks which one critic called remarkable for their linear quality and rhythm. The canvases revealed the anist`s excellent use of loops, dots and curbs intermingled with daubs of dark colours.