I think recently we’ve been focussing a lot on the negative things going on in the country. It is also important to keep an eye out for any good things that are taking place so that they may lighten our mood and give us some hope for the future. One of these, the credit for which goes to City District Government Karachi, is Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim which is spread over 130 acres of land. By the way just across the road from this is another huge park spread over an area of 47 acres called Clifton Beach Park. Some might argue that two parks being across the road from one another might be an overkill considering the general lack of greenery in the city, but I think they can easily be treated as one huge park. I have seen both (from the outside) and they are both beautiful. Well done, CGDK!
Just one minor criticism: Even though it can be argued both ways the fact that the park is only for families is a bit restrictive according to me.
To get an idea of the size, effort and resources put into the park have a look at this report by DAWN:
Bagh Ibn-e- Qasim, the country’s largest park spreaded over 130 acres, inaugurated by President Pervez Musharraf on February 27.
The park is so enormous it can accommodate at least 300,000 people at a time and opens day and night. A portion of the enormous garden offers more than 100 animals in action but they can not move as they are the genus of flowering plants
like lajastonia and bougainvillea, which have been carved in such a way that they resemble different animal species.The garden’s exclusivity is that it is along the Arabian Sea, which no other park possesses.
A Hindu temple located in what is now the park’s midst, has been renovated in line with the overall design of the park and worshippers can enter the premises free-of-charge.
Ten thousand eight hundred trees have been transplanted in the garden. Over 3,000 stone benches and twenty canopies erected. There are 1,500 dustbins to keep the lawns clean.
To keep the premises lively at night, 30 lighting towers — each carrying 24 powerful bulbs — twenty arena vision floodlights and over 1,000 footlights are installed. One hundred twenty acres are used for lawns and paths, walking and other structures have been built on the remaining 10 acres.
The City District Government Karachi, which owns the park, has hired a private security agency for the park. This firm will deploy about 200 security guards besides 50 men mounted on horses will ensure security.
Source: Dawn
Why don’t you instead do a post on it’s current situation ? I remember DAWN carried a picture of one of it’s walls having collapsed months after it’s inauguration.
Raza: I had no idea that one of the walls had collapsed. That is not a good sign.
However, it doesn’t take away from the fact that it is a beautiful park and the largest in Pakistan. It is an encouraging development since recently all that the government has been interested in is the commercialisation of all land. Mideast Hospital was brought down to give away to a shopping mall (at least that’s what I’ve heard). One might argue that even though there isn’t much that could go wrong with a park and that is keeping in mind the low standards set by our governments they still managed to build a faulty wall. But, hopefully it will allow people in the surrounding areas to make full use of it and the broken wall will soon be fixed.