Islamabad — a city with maximum slums

ISLAMABAD: The Islamabad Capital Territory (ICT) has maximum slums with these areas being so categorized for being devoid of any civic services like water supply, sewerage, basic health and education, the provisional results of the 2017 population census reveal.

An extremely unusual and shocking finding of the instant data is that population in rural areas of Islamabad increased as opposed to its urban region. This is contrary to the growth of population across Pakistan where urban populace shot up as against the rural areas.

In the present census compared to 1998’s similar exercise, the proportion of rural population of the ICT went up by 15pc, an extraordinary development, whereas in whole of Pakistan urban population swelled.

Islamabad’s population in the three censuses of 1981, 1998, and 2017 has been 340,000, 810,000, and two million. The ratio of urban population was 60pc, 65pc and 50pc, in them respectively. Overall highest population growth, 4.9pc, has now been recorded in ICT where growth in rural areas of Islamabad has been above 6pc.

The phenomenal 15pc growth in the rural proportion of the ICT is not due to indigenous population increase, but because of migration to the ICT suburbs, mostly from southern and northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and even northern Punjab. The migration from KP has obviously been triggered by its peculiar security situation.

The entire population growth in ICT’s rural areas is in fact development of slums around sectoral urban region of the federal capital. The major focus of this huge population surge in the rural belt has been areas around Tarnol, Sihala, Rawal Dam, Bani Gala, Barakahu, Bari Imam, Golra, Shah Allah Ditta, Nilore Road, and Jhangi Sayedan.

In reality, all this 65pc population being shown as rural is basically slum development, giving Islamabad a dubious distinction of being the capital with largest proportion of slum dwellers. This finding of the 2017 census has serious implications for Islamabad in terms of security, law and order, and future development.

The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has not developed any residential sector in last 30 years. Even after Islamabad’s control has gone to the elected Mayor, the situation has not improved, and whatever little spark the civic agency had has also gone dormant.

The findings of the latest data, showing huge growth in slums, are an objective and empirical commentary on the state of affairs of the CDA and ministries responsible for planning and management of the federal capital. What is even more intriguing is that successive heads of governments have been directly controlling the CDA, and ICT administration.

The ethnic and linguistic profile of these new rural/slum dwellers has not been shared by the Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PSB) yet, which will provide even more insightful data of demographics of these dwellings. Demographic experts are predicting that, once this data is available, Islamabad may be a majority Pashtu speaking region.

With construction of western route of the China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC), which will reduce travel time for KP’s southern districts to the capital to almost two hours, the situation will get further complicated, highlighting urgency for development of satellite towns around western route if further slum development in Islamabad is to be prevented and reasonable alternative is to be provided to incoming migrants.

This critical finding of the new census demands the prime minister’s immediate attention and need to shake the CDA out of slumber, and also provides a good score card to measure performance of bureaucrats responsible for planning and urban management of the capital.

Another factor further complicating this rapid “slumisation” in the capital’s suburbs is practically zero development expenditure in rural areas of ICT as the per capita development expenditure allocated in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for rural areas of Islamabad is lowest in Pakistan. Even backward regions like Balochistan, tribal areas and Gilgit-Baltistan have more per capita development spending than ICT’s rural areas.

India’s definition of urban population is very interesting. They don't go about it like Pakistan. A line divides urban and rural areas, but it is the characteristics of population that decide whether populace is to be classified as rural or urban.

These features include population of 5,000 or above; at least 75pc of male population engaged in non-agriculture pursuits so the linkage to agriculture will determine whether population is urban or rural; and population density of at least 400 persons per square kilometer.

Going by this definition, Tarnol, Barakhau, Sihala, Bani Gala, Jhangi Sayedan and many other settlements would be urban but urban slums.

Indians also use terms like urban agglomerations and outgrowths to define certain population centers in rural areas but have urban characteristics. As per these features, the ICT would be 80 percent urban but predominately "urban slums".