KARACHI (APP) - Nazim Karachi Syed Mustafa Kamal has appealed to Karachiites to pay infrastructure tax for a stable city government, maintenance of infrastructure and continuity of development journey, on time as a national obligation. If the citizens would not cooperate, no harm will be caused to city government but the infrastructure constructed with billions of rupees of citizens would be destroyed only within 6 months and a lot of time would be required for Karachi to make a come back. In a statement Nazim Karachi said that city banks are collecting this tax for the convenience of citizens and people should not hesitate to pay this very nominal tax aimed at protecting the infrastructure. He pointed out that City Government did not impose this tax in the first year, but it worked during the first 3 years, gave results to people and only then appealing them to help and assist for protection of these projects. He cited the example of Abbasi Shaheed Hospital where, he said, earlier only 220 patients used to visit OPD and now this number has gone up to 5500 a day. He said millions of rupees worth machinery has been installed in the hospital and if not properly maintained it will destroy. At Karachi Institute of Heart Diseases, he said, cardio diseases are being treated and operations conducted at very low expenses and angiography is being done for only Rs 2500 as against Rs 30,000 charged by other hospitals. For fire stations, machinery and fire engines costing billions of rupees have been purchased but diesel for them is a problem. Mustafa Kamal said that all these developments would stall, if city government did not had the resources, He said it is not proper to collect tax under police or danda culture. The citizens of Karachi should pay this tax with the spirit of love with the country, province and the city so that development works continue and projects completed are looked after. Nazim said the country is faced with economic problems and city government cannot wait for funds from federal or provincial governments. He said the country is economically very affects but development of Karachi must not stop and rather it needs to be further accelerated. He made it clear that if development process stops in Karachi it will have impact on whole of country and unemployment will grow as a result of which various crimes including terrorism will increase. Mustafa Kamal said that if city government stops development projects, then thousands of people are directly affected in one project. It would affect cement, steel, factory workers and labourers working on the project, vehicle drivers etc which means growth of unemployment. He pointed out that Katchi Abadis and houses of less than 80 sq yards are exempted from this tax and only a minor tax levied on houses in the upper bracket which will not over burden the citizens.