Baba Island: Still Thirsty

Despite having a population of over 15,000, Baba Island near Keamari in Karachi is devoid of almost all basic facilities. Water is a nightmare for the people, who have been thirsty for years now, despite the fact a pipeline was laid by the former City District Government of Karachi led by Nazim Mustafa Kamal and a non-functional RO plant is there.

Named after Haji Ebrahim Shah Baba, the island is mostly inhabited by fishermen of Katchi-speaking Sindhis, whereas trading shops owners are from other communities as well like Urdu-speaking, Punjabis, Pushtoon, Balochs and even Bengalis.

Twin with another island Bhit, the Baba island comes under a constituency of PPP’s Karachi President Abdul Qadir Patel, MNA, who had promised to provide basic facilities at the time of each election campaign, but after the elections, he forgets the island and voters as usual. The island has a number of schemes (like a water tank, an RO plant etc) with an inauguration nameplate outside inscribed with the name of Abdul Qadir Patel.

Some private NGOs, however, have taken the task to provide education and health to a section of the population. For example, an NGO has adopted a government school to run it efficiently, and another NGO is running a medical dispensary with doctors and free medicines. But Baba island’s people buy water from private water suppliers who bring water in launch tankers from the Native Jetty hydrant.

A plastic drum with a capacity of 210 litres is sold at PKR 120 and if a porter drops it at one’s doorstep from the jetty it costs PKR 220 (PKR 100 labour cost). For a family of 10 persons, at least 2 such water drums are required. Most of the income of people goes to buying water. The majority of children suffer from malnutrition and adults have weaker physiques.

Dr. Yousuf, a local social worker and a former Union Council Nazim (2002) said a local company had installed a huge water purifier or Reverse Oasis (RO) plant, which ran for a while, but it is now laying idle as there is no staff to run and machinery has developed faults. Fresh investment is required to properly operate this RO project.

“The water pipeline installed during the Mustafa Kamal period had supplied water to the island for a brief period and right now there is no water supply through pipes,” said Dr. Yousuf.

An NGO of Navy’s retired officers is running a primary-cum-secondary school, which has constructed a beautiful building of over 20 classrooms and another Turkish NGO has recently provided quality furniture to the school. Dr. Yousuf supervises the school, which was being run by a Government employed head teacher. In fact, there are only three government primary teachers posted in this school, with over 800 children. The other teachers are employed by the ex-Naval staff NGO. 

The headmaster of the school claimed that his school is top in enrollment of children in the primary section in the entire Sindh province. “We have 10 classes only for Class-I,” he says with pride. It is in fact dedication of the headmaster who comes daily in the island from the central part of the city.

Similar is the situation in healthcare facilities. A dispensary with only one male medical doctor right now and a lady doctor who was on leave these days, is providing healthcare facilities to the entire island’s population. The NGO charges PKR 20 as an Out Patients Department fee to each visiting patient and provides medicines prescribed by the doctor free of cost. A maternity labour room and pathological laboratory is also part of this medical facility. Regular vaccination under Expanded Programme for Immunization (EPI) is also available in the dispensary.

Dr. Yousuf claims proudly that Baba island is now a Polio-free area as his NGO aggressively took part in each Polio-vaccination campaign. The girls of the island volunteered to administer the vaccination drops and no case of Polio is reported from the area this year.