KARACHI: Lack of interest piles up abandoned projects
By Habib Khan Ghori
KARACHI, May 23: Fate of a number of projects, abandoned half way though much needed, still hangs in the balance. Work on these projects had been stopped abruptly for reasons best known to those who be.
The concerned high officials are, perhaps, least interested in even paying attention to the problems that had led to the waste of time, energy and money already invested in these projects.
Among these projects is an indoor sports complex that would have facilitated youths in developing their sporting skills and physical health beside promoting healthy competition in this vital segment of society.
All successive governments, whether civilian or military, have been assuring Karachiites since ’90s that they wanted to see projects of such essential requirements materialized. However, no practical measures appeared to have been taken by any of these governments.
The city managers also have excelled in the art of shelving, burying and freezing projects of public welfare. Their lethargy and stubborn attitude could be gauged from the fact that even a military chief executive like Gen Pervez Musharraf failed to move them over a long period of three years in getting the issue of Karachi Circular Railway resolved despite his clear cut orders.
The KCR operation was suspended on Dec 15, 1999. On the directive of President Musharraf, a cabinet sub-committee was formed and assigned to put forward proposals for its revival. A feasibility report was prepared by the Engineering Consultants International but no progress in practical terms has been made so far.
Agreed, more than Rs3 billion had been spent on flyovers with an aim of facilitating people and improving the KCR service. The question still haunting the would-be beneficiaries of KCR is that what actually was the purpose of doing all this when the KCR plan was to be abandoned.
The project appeared to be one of the several others abandoned in the interest of the transport mafia of the city and at the same time at the cost of commuters’ interest.
Unfortunately, there are many other projects of recreation activities that were inherited by the city at the time of independence and now suffering badly.
Construction of an indoor sports complex at the junction of Garden Road and M. A. Jinnah Road was started in early ’70s. Its incomplete structure is haunting the city since then.
Likewise, an auditorium which was planned to be setup in Aiwan-i-Rifaat in the Burnes Garden, has also been abandoned after spending millions of rupees in it.
Instead, the Aiwan-i-Rifaat has been converted into the office of EDO (Culture and Sports) of the city government and its open space has been used as ‘charged parking’ without any clue of the national treasure of Begum Attia and Faizi Rahmeen.
Yet another ‘odd landmark’, standing side by side five star hotels and other promising plazas, is the Hyatt Regency. Though President Musharraf himself had directed the concerned institutions to get the project completed by writing off the markup on investment, nothing has been done so far to to get the project moving.
The water-starved city has in the grip of a serious crisis of water. Whenever a solution to the dried up rivers and reservoirs had been discussed, the experts always reach the conclusion that there must be a desalination plant in the city. However, the people at the helm of affairs seemed happy with the conclusion only and allergic on giving a practical shape to the experts’ valuable opinion.
