| July 18, 2003 | Friday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 17, 1424 |
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Rain: why always a calamity?
Lahore rail transit project
GREEK Cyprus is going perhaps to be the only country that will become a member of the European Union without a referendum. So overwhelming is the popular support for an EU membership that the government of the Greek part of the divided island did not think a referendum was necessary. Instead, on Monday, the Greek Cypriot parliament passed a resolution ratifying the southern state’s EU accession treaty by a unanimous vote. Since the European Union considers Greek Cyprus to be the sole representative of the entire island, this means, technically, the entire island will become an EU member along with 10 other states on May 1, 2004. Having a per capita income of $15,000, Greek Cyprus is the richest of the new states that will become EU members in about 10 months’ time. Its economy will further grow as EU membership will lead to higher European investments in tourism, real estate and services. Enjoying traditionally friendly relations with the Arab world, Greek Cyprus views itself as a natural bridge between Europe and the Middle East. However, the Greek Cypriot membership of the EU will have repercussions on the northern half, as well as on Turkey’s own bid for the membership of the 15-member grouping.
The EU expects Ankara to take steps to conform to the Copenhagen criteria for becoming eligible for membership. These include an improvement in Turkey’s human rights records, besides granting cultural rights to the Kurdish majority. On these fronts, Turkey has moved ahead admirably. It has abolished the death penalty, liberalized laws relating to the media, and granted cultural rights to the Kurdish minority. However, the EU wants Ankara to do more. At its summit meeting in Copenhagen in December last, the EU fixed December 2004 as the date by which negotiations leading to Turkey’s membership will begin provided Ankara improved its human rights record. Besides, the issue of Turkey’s membership is linked to a settlement of the Cyprus issue.
On the island, there is little evidence that the two sides will be able to clinch a deal by December 2004. The UN-sponsored talks failed last March, and there is no indication that either party will move away from its known position to kick-start the talks and move towards reconciliation. The only hopeful development has been the decision to allow Cypriots on both sides to move freely across the green line. For this positive move, Turkish Cypriot President Rauf Denktash gets the credit. There was a lot of euphoria and enthusiasm on both sides, with people crossing the green line both ways to see their ancestral homes. However, that enthusiasm gave way to disappointment as people found their childhood homes occupied by strangers. If there is hope it lies in the evolution of a new leadership on the Turkish side of the green line. Mr Denktash has been at the helm of affairs for too long. His critics accuse him of being too rigid and unresponsive to the wishes of a majority of Turkish Cypriots, who too want a relationship with the EU. There is hope that perhaps a new Turkish Cypriot leadership could show some flexibility and move towards a rapprochement. A Cyprus accord acceptable to the two communities should be able to remove a major hurdle in the way of Turkey’s EU membership and contribute to the prosperity of the two communities on the island.
THE death of 10 people in Karachi during a dust storm and rain on Wednesday is an unfortunate reminder that the city’s administration needs to do much more to prevent further casualties during the current monsoon season. Wednesday’s toll brings to 25 the number of people who have died this month in just two bouts of less than heavy rainfall. Apart from becoming veritable ponds, many roads seem to resemble a dangerous obstacle course during rain and windstorms. Metal sheets flying about in the storm yesterday struck and killed two people on the road and injured several others, including a two-year old girl who is in a coma. One man died after he made the fatal mistake of seeking shelter under a billboard, which fell on him and crushed him. In an even more disturbing development, a 13-storey building developed cracks and seemed in danger of collapsing. Luckily it did not and the building was later evacuated for reasons of safety.
Simply proclaiming a ‘rain emergency’, as the city administration did on Wednesday, does not mean much unless it forms part of a series of preventive and precautionary measures to minimize death, damage, injury, disruption and dislocation during and after a cloudburst. In taking these steps, the civic agencies must coordinate their actions so that a unified response can be forged to deal with the rain and its aftermath. The water and sanitation department must ensure that all the water accumulated on the roads and open grounds is promptly drained away. The drains must be cleaned regularly so that the next time it rains the roads do not get flooded. The KESC must ensure that its electricity wires do not snap, posing the risk of electrocution. As Wednesday’s storm showed billboards placed on high-rise buildings could easily tumble and kill people. Hence, the city government must require all such signboards to be secured with cables as is the practice in many countries.
MUCH like the Karachi Mass Transit Programme, which never saw the light of day, a similar unfortunate fate now seems to await Lahore’s Light Rail Transit Project. This is because the authorities concerned in Lahore, just like their counterparts in Karachi earlier on, failed to move forward on this vital urban transit project. The Lahore project seemed all set to take off after a Memorandum of Understanding was signed between the city district government and an international consortium in May last year. If the required formalities had been completed in time, the $ 400 million project would have given the city a 34km-long modern electro-magnetic rail transit corridor by 2004. But this was not to be, as the authorities fell back on their customary practice of delaying and dithering so that the international consortium decided to pull out in desperation.
No other city in the region the size of Karachi or Lahore has such a pathetic urban public transport system as the ones operating in the country’s two largest cities. In fact, there is hardly any system in place; the public sector has all but left the field open for the private operators to move in and fill the vacuum. Non-standardized, poorly maintained vehicles owned by transport barons, are by and large, the norm in terms of the public transport plying our roads. The conductors and drivers are rude and fleece the hapless commuters with impunity. After the formation of the city district governments in the four provincial capitals, there was some hope that the local governments would seriously try to streamline and expand the deficient and chaotic urban transport system but that has not materialized. This is because the bureaucracy has not changed its ways and continues to stall work on various development projects on one pretext or another. The pulling out of the international consortium from the Lahore project is yet another sorry indication that conditions on the ground are not yet ripe for changes and improvements.