| July 27, 2003 | Sunday | Jumadi-ul-Awwal 26, 1424 |
Have we missed the train?
FOUR to six new-born babies have been dying every month due to non-availability of incubator at the divisional headquarters (DHQ) hospital.
The incubator has been out of order since long and the hospital administration has failed to get it repaired or make alternative arrangements.
It is stated that government provided an incubator to the DHQ hospital for women patients some years ago. But the machine went out of order and the administration threw it in the scrap store.
When contacted, the DHQ administration said that the incubator was being repaired with the approval of the higher authorities as it had no funds to get the machine repaired.
A SPECIAL task force has been formed for the recovery of sales tax and central excise from industrialists.
This was stated by sales tax and central excise collector Ghulam Ahmad here the other day. A circular was issued to all circle officers throughout the division for the purpose.
He said that various industrialists and manufacturers were involved in tax evasion and had allegedly prepared fake record of their products and sales.
The Sales Tax and Central Excise Collectorate would recover sales tax and central excise duty from them in accordance with the law without any discrimination, by conducting raids at their industries and taking the record into custody.
He pointed out that a high-level meeting of sales tax and central excise officials reviewed the recovery and audit report. They expressed dissatisfaction over the audit report and the pace of recovery.
He said that a special task force under an assistant collector has been constituted for carrying out surprise visits and raids to recover sales tax and central excise. He said the task force would conduct raids on industries on receiving information.
THREE checkpoints between Gujranwala and Sialkot have been constituted by traffic police to control overspeeding and road accidents.
This was stated by traffic SP Intisar Jaffari at a recent briefing here. The checkpoints have been constituted at Aroop Mor, Daska and Sialkot where at least Rs500 fine would be imposed on public transport vehicles involved in overspeeding or overloading. The speed limit has been fixed at 80 kilometre per hour instead of 100 kilometre. Traffic police squad comprising two sergeants, two head constables and four constables would patrol from 7 am to 10 pm in two shifts. They have been empowered to fine vehicles found violating traffic laws. He said that vehicles would be impounded in case of serious violations.
He said that the traffic system of Gujranwala city was being revamped following the widening of Grand Trunk Road and demolition of encroachments with the cooperation of police and the City Tehsil Council.
The range police chief warned that SHOs and other officials involved in teasing visitors at police stations or detaining innocent people in lock-up would be suspended from service immediately after an initial inquiry besides other punishment.
DIG Malik Muhammad Iqbal was speaking at a range crime meeting held in his office here recently.
He said that crime could not be eliminated without the cooperation of the people. It was the responsibility of district police officers, sub-divisional police officers and SHOs to seek the cooperation of the people in their operation against criminals.
He announced cash prize and commendation certificates for the members of raiding parties who arrested proclaimed offenders besides gangs of dacoits and robbers.
WITH grey cloud and rain, there has been happy talk of trains also! There is something of the dream-like quality that seems to come alive. One can paint a rather rosy picture: dreams of urban bliss if one can ever call urban living that.
The thought that the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) is being revived is like a beautiful dream, said one senior citizen who refuses to believe that the circular trains will ever roll in his lifetime. He recalls the trams we had.
We talked about the recent news item and the leisurely conversation with him made us imagine and visualize a scenario like this in the distant future: July and monsoon rain. A rainy working day’s end in Karachi. Citizens finish work at 5pm in their offices on the I. I. Chundrigar Road and the adjoining areas. They are tired and happy, and home-bound. The majority of them, that is. They bring out their colourful umbrellas, and walk merrily in the light rain. Or heavy rain. There is no accumulated water on the roads, the pavements are in good shape. They don’t tire out the feet of hard-working citizens. The streams of citizens take the street that goes to railway station (perhaps the City Station if its name has not changed until then). They queue up as they wait for their particular train, which is the Karachi Circular Railway. The well-maintained KCR arrives, and one by one the citizens, ticket in hand, they get into the train. They get home that way. Keep in mind that because of this the pressure and tension on the roads of Karachi is reasonable, low. Karachi life is orderly?
Obviously we all dream like this and wonder that when will this ever happen? Will it happen? Other societies and countries have done it, and attained a staggering degree of development and bewildering progress, that we envy. We are late and very late at that. Urban transport inadequacy, so appalling, so humiliating — yet another area of deep concern. The poor citizen only asks and asks in vain. Has he missed the train?
He now reads the Dawn report of July 24 and is once again asking: will the KCR problems, and those should only be some of them, be resolved, and the KCR actually get revived?
Generally speaking, it seems that the news that the Sindh government and the Pakistan Railways have agreed on the revival of the KCR has been received with cynicism, or at best with a cautious, mild optimism. A ready reluctance that citizens have come to have whenever they are handed out promises, development plans and what some would describe as good news. Such disbelieving folks we have become. Such has been our life — all our lives.
Today as one reads this sort of KCR revival story one walks down memory lane, and wistfully remembers the days when there was a circular railway; and with the passage of time, one read in the press, or heard from those who used it, of how it had begun to deteriorate in all respects. A citizen of Azizabad tells me very fondly of how he sat in the circular train from Liaquatabad to Drigh Road, with his family, buying tickets and all. It was comfortable and reliable, and he says that it was almost 20 years ago. Another citizen says that he took the train from Nazimabad for Cantonment Station, and it was a fine journey as he travelled with his father and sisters. Days of decent travel. For others it was a family occasion, with children being thrilled at the very thought of a journey through train. There is something exciting and romantic about a train journey, and it is indeed a pity that we have been unable to make the train journey a very happy option, underlined one citizen who has travelled a great deal in trains abroad.
Even for those who did not take the KCR option in its best days, it was always a good thought that Karachi had a train service for the public, and that the city was moving with the changing times. That Karachi was growing like other cities in the developing world. But then where did we go wrong? Where did the planners fail? The political and the bureaucratic planners?
It has been revealed that the Sindh government officials informed the meeting that launching of the KCR project was aimed at reducing the travel time and providing the cheapest, comfortable and environment-friendly mode of transport .
The Railways officials reportedly observed that the transport operators in Karachi had been playing with the lives of citizens and a train-based transport system was badly needed. The federal railways minister told the high level meeting, presided over by the Sindh governor, that “we are ready to start the project.” The governor stressed the importance and value of the project, and in fact there was a unanimity on the issue. But please note that city Nazim has said that the city government has no money for it, and quite understandably, and he has further said that the land belongs to the city government. The land along the tracks that is. But the railways minister contested the claim, and the report says that the governor intervened and said that the newly-formed committee would look into the matter.
Yes, another committee has been formed. There have been, in 50 years, nine studies on the city’s transport affairs. The KCR operation was suspended on Dec 15, 1999. So now while newspaper reporters will keep track of what this new committee does, and how and when citizens will keep their fingers crossed.
There are so many dreams and promises to count, that this itself is a very pleasurable exercise. The “what/if” syndrome, again. “Farz Karo”, as the poet Ibne Insha would say.