Pakistan: Germany to help Karachi municipality restore 86-year-old clock tower

Karachi: Germany has shown willingness to help the Karachi’s municipality to repair the clock of one of the monumental buildings in the city belonging to the British colonial era.

The 86-year-old building which has the clock houses the head offices of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) and is situated on the busy main MA Jinnah Road of downtown Karachi.

Earlier, Karachi Administrator, Barrister Murtaza Wahab, took cognisance of the clock had not been functional and asked the officials concerned to restore it as part of the government’s efforts to preserve the monuments that represent heritage of Karachi.

The German Consulate in Karachi has said that it has taken up a support request by the KMC to assist in repairs of the historic clock of the KMC building within the framework of festivities of 70 years of Pakistan-Germany relations.

Since local expertise was not in a position to assure the required in-depth maintenance for full and reliable functioning of the tower clock, which led to a deterioration of its state and partial malfunction and functional limitations, the German Consulate General in Karachi reached out for support to the German master clockmaker “Perrot Tower Clocks and Bell Ringers”, in Calw near Stuttgart in Baden-Württemberg, Germany.

Perrot is particularly renowned for its installation of the World’s largest clock in the Abraj Al Bait Towers (Royal Clock Tower Hotel) in Makkah. Perrot is an outstanding example of a typical German midsize, family-owned company that is a world champion in its field. As experts in tower clocks and bell ringing technology, the company — now in operation for more than 155 years — has had the same family ownership for five consecutive generations.

Berthold Rapp, visiting master technician of the company, said: “In addition to the company’s current production and installation offers for tower clocks and wall dials, we apply expert workman skills and experience to the restoration of historical installations dating from the 1500s to present times. Old and new know-how are combined together to allow fully functional as well as aesthetically restored projects.”