IT was a week focusing on plans to make Karachi liveable and beautiful according to contemporary requirements. For example, on April 28, 1975 it was reported that the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) had proposed a scheme to the World Bank (WB) to expand recreational facilities in Lyari. The WB assured the KMC that all possible assistance for the project would be provided.

The report included a proposal for pieces of land for 22 parks and playgrounds for the area. It also identified the sites for new parks and playgrounds, a football stadium and recreation centres for indoor games.

Keeping with the theme of development and improvement, the same day, inaugurating a two-day Transport Advisory Council meeting, the Federal Communications Minister, Mumtaz Ali Bhutto, claimed Karachi would have an `efficient and rapid` public transport system, including underground tubes wherever necessary. Mr Bhutto could not attend the meeting in person because hewas indisposed. His message was read out by the Provincial Education Minister, Pyarali Allana. The federal minister referred to the fast economic growth and rapid industrialisation in the city attracting workers from all over the country as a result of which Karachi`s population was now four million estimated to go up to 6.5m by 1985. On the other hand, Mr Bhutto added, the transport service was not keeping pace with the expansion of the city in spite of the introduction of the circular railway system.

Unfortunately, two months back (in February), the 90-year-old tramway service in the city had come to an end, causing a bit of distress among those who used trams for commuting. On April 29, at the end of the Advisory Council meeting, talking to newsmen, Badiul Hassan Zaidi, the Provincial Minister for Transport, revealed that a proposal to introduce a fleet of 46 modern tramcars in Karachi had been admitted for the Sindh cabinet`s approval. A detailed project report was to be prepared as soon as the provincial cabinet gave the go-ahead. He said each tramcar would cost between Rs1.3m andRs1.4m and carry as many as 125 passengers.

As a sort of a farewell gesture, on April 30, the five tramcars of the 90-year-old tramway service had their final run on the Bunder Road-Saddar intersection Bunder Road is now M A Jinnah Road.

As the last one of them pulled into the workshop near Plaza Cinema, the Mohammadli Tramway Company (MTC) announced it had wound up operations and the tramcars would never again be seen.

The service had already discontinued on other routes and the company had been busy for two months retrieving the costly steel tracks. All the tracks were to be dug out by end of June.

And with respect to the never-ending cultural side of the city, on May 2, tributes were paid to Shamsul Ulema Dr Nazir Ahmed as a novelist and a great benefactor of Urdu literature at an event organised to observe his 62nd death anniversary at Ghalib Library. It was presided over by scholar Majnun Gorakhpuri. Dr Aslam Farrukhi and Begum Salma Zaman read papers on the life and works of Dr Ahmed.