By our correspondent
KARACHI: Traditional methods of managing Karachi’s civic issues have failed to deliver, and the city now needs AI-driven dashboards to address chronic problems, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor on Sunday.
Speaking on the megacity’s ongoing civic breakdown—ranging from broken roads and overflowing garbage to water shortages, traffic congestion, encroachments, and dysfunctional public transport—Shakoor stressed that the root cause lies not in laws or policies, but in fragmented authority, poor coordination, and lack of visibility into how Karachi functions.
He proposed AI-driven civic dashboards as practical governance tools that integrate data from multiple sources, detect patterns, predict problem hotspots, and prioritize interventions. “Dashboards make the city measurable, visible, and governable,” he said, explaining that AI would turn complaints and failures into structured, trackable data points, ensuring accountability across municipal agencies, utility providers, and provincial departments.
Shakoor detailed how dashboards could transform governance across key sectors: tracking garbage accumulation, water supply, sewer overflows, road repairs, encroachments, traffic flow, and public transport performance. By providing persistent, evidence-based insights, AI would expose recurring failures, prevent cosmetic fixes, and enable performance-based decision-making rather than discretion-based governance.
He noted that AI-driven systems are most valuable in areas with weak governance, as they increase transparency and enable external accountability by media, courts, and civil society. Even partial implementation—such as piloting in one or two districts and focusing on high-impact services—could produce substantial benefits. Over time, dashboards can build institutional memory, track projects and failures, and gradually shift civic culture from protest to participation.
Shakoor concluded that while AI alone will not solve Karachi’s problems, it can make failures visible, persistent, and undeniable, providing the city with a long-missing tool for effective governance. He called on the Sindh government, city authorities, cantonment boards, and other civic agencies to integrate AI-driven dashboards for the collective benefit of Karachi.
