Gul Bahao

Into the 21st century with new ideas from Gul Bahao

Gul Bahao exhibition announcement – Busti Benazir

Gul Bahao in a statement has announced holding of an exhibition called “Busti Benazir” on Sunday and Monday, the 3rd and 4th of January 2010. The exhibition will be portraying a new concept of “urban dwelling”. It is meant to give a glimpse of what urban areas in Sindh will start looking in the near future. “Chandi Ghar” (alternate housing), fuel pack (fuel for running power plants), “Choora Chara” (fodder for animals), “Safai/Kamai” Bank, a new kind of a bank, “Paaki Pani” (water purifying method) are the innovations which will completely change the lives of the people. These are the result of 16 years of research and an expenditure of more than 8 crores of rupees.

These innovations did not spring into being all at once, several young men trained as artisans worked on different aspects of the innovations, refining them from time to time. For months, seventy young men and more than a dozen trucks and Suzukis used to go all over Karachi, including the Export Processing Zone and collected tones of waste material. Millions of rupees were collected as loans and donations from hundreds of Karachittes to finance these activities, accounting for 30-40% of the total expenses while more than 60% of the expenses were covered through sale of waste material.

Busti Benazir Exhibition

Gul Bahao’s two day exhibition called Busti Benazir on the occasion of Benazir Bhutto’s birthday ended on the 22nd of June. The program was jointly sponsored by the Culture and Tourism Department Sindh as well as Pakistan Steel Mills. Consisting mainly of Gul Bahao’s innovations the exhibition was a rare spectacle and enjoyed tremendously by the man in the street. The organisation had invited a group of talented folk singers who enthralled the audience with their original songs dedicated to Benazir. The venue was the area opposite Sindbad below the NIPA Bridge at about 6 pm, the sun was shining brightly on a riot of colors, shimmering silver and gold, pink, bright yellow, red and green. A soul-searing song on Benazir was being rendered while hundreds of coaches and buses carrying jam-packed passengers was slowly making its way on the over-head bridge, the passengers also acting as audience; it was a rare scene.

The exhibition was a combination of the scientific and the cultural. In between the songs the audience were being exhorted to study and use the different discoveries and innovations of Gul Bahao namely Chandi Ghar and Paki Pani. One of the speakers said that Paki Pani being a water purification method not only prevents most water-borne diseases but also cures them. Poor people, he said, would be greatly helped if their health improves. A swimming pool made from wastic blocks, an innovation of Gul Bahao, was shown filled with water. A 12 X 15 foot “Chandi Ghar” was shown looking every bit a “Chandi Ghar”.

Summing up the two-day exhibition, Nargis Latif said that Gul Bahao takes its inspiration from the martyrdom of Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto who dreamed of a prosperous Pakistan. In one of her addresses to the audiences, Nargis Latif declared that ” Busti Benazir” is now another name for the research-cum exhibition centre which houses all the innovations of Gul Bahao Trust.

Gul Bahao CEO meets provincial parliamentarians for project Busti Benazir

Gul Bahao’s Nargis latif has been lobbying with provincial parliamentarians for its project Busti Benazir. For this she has met practically all the ministers and MPAs of the ruling party. Prominent among these are Mr Murad Ali shah, Rafiq Engineer, Nadir Magsi, Dost Muhammad Bhurt. Jam Mehtab, Manzoor Wassan, Tauqeer Fatima Bhutto etc. Nargis emphasized that this project is unique and bids farewell to all conventional modes of development in vogue. This is why it is called Benazir meaning unique, she explained. Nargis further explained that the project mirrors the People’s Party’s slogan of “Roti Kupra aur Makan”. She said that in the short run the project will provide low cost houses for the poorest of the poor while in the long run it will help to change the entire socio-economic condition of society, since it covers sectors of society as diverse as, health, business, agriculture, livestock, environment, education and housing. Having spent eight crores and spent sixteen years on its research activities, Gul Bahao is now in a position to advise the government on many developmental issues. Nargis said that it would be a pity if the government failed to make use of these hard earned inventions which are both simple and extremely cost effective. Further more Nargis claimed that since no one in the world has come up with these innovations, they would make a big name for the country as well. Gul Bahao feels an emotional attachment with Benazir as it was during her second rule that an atmosphere was created which brought into existence a research organization like Gul Bahao and what better way to celebrate Mohtarma’s birthday than to announce the establishment of Busti Benazir. Several parliamentarians have extended their support and contributed to the fund for establishing Busti Benazir.

Gul Bahao’s innovations presented to Vice Chancellor Hamdard University

Yesterday, Nargis Latif, Managing  Trustee of Gul Bahao had a detailed meeting with the Vice-Chancellor of Hamdard University, Dr Nasim  A. Khan.  In the University Campus at Madina-tul- Hikmat where she gave an elaborate account of  Gul Bahao’s  Research Centre in Gulshan-e-Iqbal. Nargis claimed that the Centre has succeeded in providing answers to problems of waste management of one of the largest cities of the world i.e. Karachi. What is more, several of the products developed there are geared towards changing the economy as well. According to her Gul Bahaos latest innovations include “fuel pack” a low cost fuel for running power plants and Choora Chara” – fodder  for livestock. Nargis said that the task before the Centre is not only to innovate but to market and do the extensions work as well. In a hide bound society such as ours which she described as “lakeer key fakir”, there is initially a total rejection of anything new, original or creative. She regretted that a good deal of her time is spent in arranging funds for her research work.  Nonetheless she said that she never allowed her research work to suffer even if she had to borrow money from moneylenders at exorbitant rates of 100-120% rate of interest. She said she paid one moneylender eight lacs of rupees as interest for a principal amount of three lacs only. The V.C.  of Hamdard University  took keen interest in Nargis’s  presentation  and asked her to make a detailed survey of the University Campus to find how Gul Bahao’s research work could be applied to the Hamdard University . Dr Nasim offered to have installed Gul Bahaos Chandi Ghar or prefabricated housing in the campus. To start with, he said that the universities plant doing research work on alternative energy stands in need of such a structure. He said that if successful the Chandi Ghar (made from industrial waste) could be used copiously in the fast growing campus of the varsity.

NED University, environment department students visit Gul Bahao complex

Yesterday, a group of students numbering 70 (seventy) from the environment department of NED university came on a study tour of the Gul Bahao Complex located on Rashid Minhas road, the students were amazed to see a Research Center run on a self help basis especially when they were told that about seven crore rupees spread over s period of fifteen years, have so far been spent on the different projects. The question that they kept raising was how it was funded. The answer that was shot back was “beg, borrow or steal”. The students were divided into four groups and shown around the centre. Habib Malik a spokesman of the Center showed the students around especially the Safai/Kamai Bank which is the earning arm of the Organisation. Habib said that  the Safai/kamai bank (A modern version  of the Kabaria)  funds more than 60% of the research work of  Gul Bahao. Habib said that from day one the Organisation has been involved in commercial work i.e. buying and selling of assorted wastage (which has a ready market ). Had it not been for this, Habib the Incharge proudly claimed, Gul Bahao would not have been able to function. Partly agreeing with her spokesman, Nargis Latif the Managing Trustee of Gul Bahao said that the project was too big to be sustained entirely on its own funds and at times even had to borrow from money lenders at exorbitant rates. She further claimed that that Gul Bahao is doing both research and extension work.

The students evinced special interest in the fuel pack which the Organisation claims is cheap fuel  for running power plants The spokesman  Habib said that Attock Cement had shown keen interest in this project and offered to buy 500 tonnes per day of this fuel for its cement plant. At this point Nargis Latif exhorted the students to lobby with the government for using Karachi’s waste to produce electricity. Gul Bahao would provide the fuel at economic rates but also help producers to make these fuel packs in the cottage industries.

The students were shown all the innovations in minute detail. The hall in which they were seated fascinated them completely as except for bamboo sticks no conventional material was used. It was said that the building blocks were made from a mixture of compressed shopping bags and aluminium foil. The so called wastic blocks will last till eternity for the simple reason that plastic does not disintegrate easily, it was claimed.

The Chairperson of Gul Bahao said that the Chinese revolution was accompanied by simple indigenous technology and this is precisely the way Gul Bahao is working and devising cheap and original solutions to seemingly intractable problems. Nargis said that Gul Bahao can be called an Environmental Organisation whose philosophy is recycling is the answer to our problems. She said that though she believes in going “back to nature” for solving todays environment problems she is not averse to using pet bottles, shopping bags and other conveniences of modern life. The NED students were clearly impressed by all that they said. A few went to the extent of hugging the young spokesman Habib Malik. Several volunteered to work for Gul Baho in their free time