KARACHI, March 12: Work on the proposed Central Park will begin shortly as its layout plan has already been prepared and made public.
A visit to the old Sabzimandi area, which was handed to the army’s 5-Corps by the city government for converting it into a central park, revealed that the army has chalked out a strategy to start excavation of earth as per the design of the park.
The salient features of the park were explained to the city government and other concerned authorities during a briefing by the army engineers last week.
The park will be a model one and will have all modern recreation facilities, in addition to a main walkway, jogging and walking tracks, geyser fountains, children’s playland, women’s park, lake, seasonal garden, food courts, students park, public facilities area, and a gymnasium. It will also accommodate a woodland, botanical gardens and an army museum.
Work on the park had slowed down in the past owing to technical problems after levelling of the ground, and because there was no display of the site plan, people had started speculating about the use of the land.
At present, a site office and a nursery has been set up on one of the adjacent open ground and work on laying of a water supply line has also been started.
The project, spread over 38 acres, was handed to the 5- Corps in April last to turn the ground into a modern city park.
The central park was promised by the authorities at a time when the idea for a new Sabzimandi was conceived in the early 1990s.
Under an agreement signed between Lt-Gen Tariq Waseem Ghazi and Nazim City Government Naimatullah Khan on April 2, the park would be developed by the army from its own resources which would not only be a pride of town-planning, but also be a gift to the Karachiites.
The Central Park would be the second landmark in the metropolis to be gifted to the citizens by the army after its contribution in the form of a Shalimar-style park around Quaid’s mausoleum.
The army, which was earlier assigned the task of supervising the shifting of old Sabzimandi to its new site, had earlier carried out the survey of the land to save it from any future encroachments.
Soon after, a committee was formed to monitor the progress of shifting, headed by Brig Ghulam Quadir, and after its shifting, the land was given under the supervision of KMC for the development of a non-commercial park in its place.
Since the shifting of Sabzimandi in last April, the people of Karachi have been waiting to see a sprawling park as promised by the successive governments.
Earlier, when the decision was taken to shift the old Sabzimandi from the University Road to the Superhighway, the concerned citizens had expressed resentment over reports that after the shifting of the Sabzimandi to a new location, the old area would be utilised to raise funds for the government.
City Nazim Naimatullah Khan, who was present at the briefing, told Dawn that work had already been initiated on the site and at the nursery where hundreds of saplings have been planted for transplantation after necessary development work in the park.
However, he said it was not possible to fix a date of its completion as it was a huge project which would require a lot of finances.
