Atlas of (Dys)Function: Power (& lack thereof) in Karachi & the region.

Here is the 1st chapter of my proposed atlas that I’ve completed over the last 10, wrist-breaking days. I’d taken time off from work to focus on this labour of love, & produce at least 1 complete artifact.
On the front is a map, geographically accurate, & slightly exaggerated, laying out all power production facilities (> 50 MWs) in & around the city. I added the missing ones from the last iterations, cleaned up the icons & standardised the colours for clarity.
On the top right are two charts: 1 showing the challenge of the network divided into two T&D systems (with little connectivity) & the other shows the energy mix as it will shape up over the next two years.
On the back is an ordered list by each plant: its name, installed capacity, primary fuel & relationship to the two networks (KE & NTDC’s). There’s also an icon for each that I made myself. This was the most tedious, albeit fulfilling, part.
Now that I’ve finished it, I’m wondering why I did this in the first place. Maybe I’ll find the time to print it, sell some copies to enthusiasts & cash in on my labour. Maybe a publisher will see this & commission the whole atlas that I can then work on over the next few years.
But this was a LOOOTTT of work. I spent my entire 10-day holiday on this. But this is done, and I’ll be back to my regular work tomorrow. Thank you for all the feedback. Parting shot to my fav, useless plant, DHA Co-Gen, like whom I will now put this project on snooze. 🥂💤👋🏽
Special thanks to the wonderful folks at NEPRA who have made a mountain of documents and publications accessible online. Haven’t seen this accessibility & transparency in any provincial or local govt dept. 👏🏽🎖

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More from @gulraizkhan

31 Dec 20
Here’s my New Year’s present for fellow Karachiites: Charaagh Talaay Andhera, a map of power produced in & around Karachi. By the end of 2021, there will be more than 1GW of electricity produced in the region, almost the same as Dubai. Khi needs around 3,500 MWs.
The bulk of this new capacity will come from new coal and RLNG based power plants that have already come online, or are on the way. They’re clustered on the west, around Hub, or on the east, around Port Qasim.
@KElectricPk, meanwhile depends on its existing 5 plants (on green squares), a bunch of existing & polluting IPPs (Gul Ahmed & Tapal), and some renewables that it gets itself (solar) or is provided by NEPRA (wind) along Gharo.
Read 7 tweets
5 Dec 20
Here is the promised fictitious map of a public tram network 🚃 in the south of #Karachi, with connections to #KCR 🚊 and the Green and Yellow BRTs 🚌. I didn’t dream it up. I read through hundreds of pages of JICA reports, so you don’t have to. Here’s what I learnt ...
There are some Japanese folks who know Gurumandir, Daakkhana, Lalookhait & Surjani way better than most of us. They spent years conducting surveys, detailed drawings, maps and studies, all compiled into 2 key outputs: KTIP Masterplan (2013) & KCR Preperatory Survey (2013)
Each of those documents is a treasure trove 🎁 and available online. Fun facts: KCR was proposed in the 1952 Master Plan of Karachi, & a slightly modified version was built by 1969. First major piece of civic infrastructure built post partition in Karachi. 🚂
Read 11 tweets
4 Jul 20
You’ve probably recently seen a lot of people cycling around on the streets 🛣, or on Instagram 📸. You’ve also seen the obnoxious types who have a Vigo trailing behind them as they cycle 🚴🏽🚗. Is this a fad that will disappear? Or is this here to stay in Pakistan?
Luckily for us, most of these outdoor enthusiasts log/record their activities using mobile apps. One of those apps, @Strava, converts last 2 years of data into heat maps, and shares publicly. I dug into the maps for #Karachi to see what it says about this cycling & running trend.
This is Karachi’s cycling heat map. Most of the logged activity is in East and South: Gulshan, Johar, PECHS, Clifton & DHA. Some activity in Malir Cantt and Bahria Town. Except DHA, cycling happening on major roads: SEFaisal, Uni Rd, Karsaz, Mai Kolachi etc.
Read 15 tweets
11 Apr 20
Newly annointed Dr. @erumrum shared with me a paper on Santiago, Chile's public transport redesign in early 2000s, titled @Transantiago: A tale of two cities. Riveting read & raises really interesting questions about Karachi's transport experience. Thought I'd share here:
1. Santiago went through a deregulation of public transport in 1980s, leading to "atomised ownership structure" and fall in service quality through the 90s. Same in Karachi. Many owners, own 1-2 buses, & form a powerful political collective (Khi Transport Ittehad). Bad quality.
Impact of this in Santiago: on-street competition for passengers, ticket-pocketing, denial of service to vulnerable folks, deferred vehicle maintenance, bad working conditions for drivers. Same in Karachi. Do all large cities deteriorate the same way? 🤔
Read 10 tweets
22 Mar 20
Panic during pandemic:

TL/DR: fridge goes bust hours before lockdown on Sunday. Will it get fixed in time for a 2-week curfew?

Refrigerator stops cooling sometime in the afternoon. Mum plays around with thermostat. Doesn’t inform anyone...
I notice milk carton is warm when making tea for fam around 7pm. Think it must be a new one that’s why it’s warm. Water bottles also barely cold. Ignore my sixth sense.
Mum comes in at 8pm with mild panic. Fridge doesn’t seem to be cooling at all. I go to inspect with her. The ice from the freezer has started to thaw. 4 hours to lockdown. What can we do?!
Read 15 tweets
10 Sep 19
🌿 So I’ve spent two days digging through various budgets to get a simple answer: how much do our major cities (Khi, Lhr & Isl) spend on their parks. I did not get any definitive answer to that, 🙄, but here are some fun things I learnt instead:
1) KMC is the ONLY local govt that actually shared a detailed budget, albeit in Urdu, rendering it unsearchable. They spent about PKR 1 billion on parks, but this excludes a number of large parks, like Safari Park, Zoo etc. But this is only a fraction of parks in Karachi...
We have no idea what is spent on parks in, e.g. @DHAKarachiOfc. They, or Cantt Board Clifton, share no budgets, ofc. They treat their residents as consumers, not citizens that they are accountable to. No surprises there.
Read 8 tweets

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