Orangi: History
=== 1950 era ===
Following the Partition of India and creation of the Islamic Republic of Pakistan, a separate country for Muslims of India in 1947, a large influx of Muslim refugees from India began moving into Karachi. The Pakistani government began granting permission for refugees to settle on vacant land by 1950.
Orangi was established as a township in this context by 1965. Orangi Township was originally planned over 1,300 acres (530 ha) by the Karachi Development Authority, and many of Karachi's squatter settlements were relocated here. The township was planned and developed with informal assistance from the city's municipal administration.
Its population rapidly increased in late 1971 during and after Bangladeshi Liberation War following the arrival of thousands of refugees Biharis fleeing from the newly independent state of Bangladesh (formerly East Pakistan., and the government began to regard it as a quasi-permanent settlement. However, due to its status as an unofficial and unplanned settlement, Orangi did not qualify for government aid or community assistance, and the area's sanitation was extremely poor. Unofficial administrators emerged and became members and leaders of local political parties.
In the 1980s, as local inhabitants became frustrated at the lack of assistance from the municipal administration, the Orangi Pilot Project was launched under the guidance of Akhtar Hameed Khan, in which the local community financed, designed and built their own low-cost sewerage system. As a result of the sense of ownership, the community maintained the sewerage system and streets itself. Piped water was only introduced to the settlement in 1984, though the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board eventually began providing water supply to the settlement.
Until the early 1980s, most of Orangi's population was Muhajir or Punjabi. The town's demography began to shift in the 1980s as Pashtuns began arriving in the city in large numbers. In 1985, Karachi's ethnic divisions reached Orangi, as Muhajir and Pashtun groups fought over the area near Benaras Chowk and Metro Cinema. In December 1986, Pashtun gunmen attacked the Aligarh Colony, which was home to a vulnerable population of Biharis who had recently been repatriated from Bangladesh.
The municipality was described in a 1999 National Geographic article on Mumbai's Dharavi slum as the "largest shanty town in Asia." Orangi is in fact a lower-class settlement with basic amenities of life available to most of the people. Only some parts of Orangi Town can be characterised as a slum. At 57 square kilometres (22 sq mi) in size, it is "significantly less dense than most urban slums and also more structured". Ninety per cent of Orangi's streets are connected to sewage services. Ninety-six per cent of homes in Orangi have their own private latrine or toilet. Most homes in Orangi feature two or three rooms.
In 2001, Orangi was formally organised and established as a proper part of the city of Karachi and granted its own town council. By 2004, over 90% of households in Orangi were connected to the city's electric grid, although up to 20% of connections were illegal.
In 2011 the City District Government Karachi was disbanded but remained in place for bureaucratic administration until 2015, when the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation system was reintroduced. In 2015, Orangi Town was re-organised as part of Karachi District West.