0
KARACHI, Sept 22: Almost all major thoroughfares of the city, except for those which were built as part of Life-Long Road Plan under American Astho technology, have either been ruined or developed deep craters and potholes, in the wake of recent rains, causing accidents and damage to vehicles.
Withering of bitumen layer and presence of deep craters at many of the main and important roads, are causing damage not only to the vehicles passing through them, but inflicting injuries to the occupants of the vehicles due to the strong jerks.
Most of the roads are in such a bad shape that the drivers have either to drive their vehicles in a zig-zag manner or to apply brakes suddenly and quite frequently to prevent their vehicles from plying through the wornout portion of the roads or save their vehicles from falling into the deep ditches.
Such dangerous manoeuvrings often result in collision as most of the drivers, who usually succeed in getting a driving licence even without visiting the licence department and appear in a test, do not know that keeping a distance with the vehicle ahead is mandatory under traffic laws. Such drivers often hit the vehicle ahead if it halts all of a sudden for some reason.
Though most of the city roads have been devastated by the recent rains, dozens of major thoroughfares were already in a dilapidated condition owing to constant shuttling operations by private water tankers as well as those belonging to the Water and Sanitation Department and managed by the Rangers.
A random survey, undertaken by this reporter, showed that there are scores of major roads which have worn out completely and become impassable in the wake of the recent rains and due to frequent movement of water tankers. Some of them are the main Jehangir Road, main PIB Colony Road (from Teen Hatti to central prison), Manghopir Road (particularly the portion between Gulbai roundabout and PAF Masroor), Capt Fareed Bukhari Shaheed Road, a major portion of Kashmir Road, Khalid Bin Waleed Road, a section of Sharea Quaideen, the main artery linking North Nazimabad with Federal B Area, Korangi Road, a portion of Stadium Road and its adjacent artery leading to Mashriq Centre (near Civic Centre), Dadabhoy Nauroji Road and several roads leading to Banaras Chowk.
A number of other roads and streets which have been in a dilapidated condition for long include those passing through blocks 2, 3 and 6 of PECHS, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, North Nazimabad, North Karachi, New Karachi, Lyari, Kharadar, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Malir, Khokhrapar, Clifton, Defence View, Bath Island, Mehmoodabad, Maqbool-i-Aam Cooperative Housing Society, Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society, Banglore Town and CP Berar Society.
While the roads have now become impassable, an inordinate delay in completing the construction work of Liaquat Flyover has been causing all sorts of traffic hazards and has thus become a major source of accidents. The work yet to be carried out includes carpeting of the flyover’s at-grade roads (those passing parallel and underneath the flyover) and installation of signals for the traffic under the flyover across the Liaquatabad No 10 and Karimabad traffic intersections.
The flyover’s construction plan was approved by the ECNEC in 1992 and the defunct KMC took nine long years to complete the project. The flyover was opened for vehicular traffic in April 2001 without getting the above-mentioned work completed. The work was supposed to be completed by the end of 2001 but has remained pending owing to a dispute between the city government and the construction firm.
In one of the major accidents believed to be a result of the incomplete construction, two young students of the APWA Girls College and a motorcyclist were killed at Karimabad. Accidents at this spot are order of the day and numerous people, mainly motorcyclists and pedestrians, have sustained injuries in these accidents.
SHAHRAH-I-ORANGI: Condition of the main thoroughfare in the sprawling Orangi Township — Shahrah-i-Orangi —, which had become almost unmotorable more than a decade ago, has now worsen to the extent public transport has stopped plying along it. Route numbers of such buses and minibuses are 1-L, 1-K, 1-G. Mubarak coach has also abandoned the route. In this situation, residents of different localities of Orangi Town are left with the only choice of travelling on the rooftops of the remaining means, the number of which has also declined owing to risk of damage to the vehicles. Transport operators appeared not ready to bear the damage being caused to their vehicles by the pointed gravels which had surfaced at various places of the road.
According to a councillor of a union council in Orangi Town, Aftab Ahmed, a considerable number of pregnant women and heart patients have lost their lives as they could not reach hospital promptly owing to the dilapidated condition of the roads. The UC’s Nazim, Shahnaz Perveen, claimed that the inordinate delay in getting the roads repaired had even compelled a number of families in the town to move to some other places.
The same UC’s Naib Nazim, Amin Baloch, pointed out that drivers of rickshaws and taxis did not agree to carry a passenger destined Orangi Town and even if any of them did, he would charge a double fare.
Whenever there is an emergency, residents of the affected UCs face immense hardship in availing ambulance service of the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital because the ambulance would take not less than 90 minutes to reach a person in trouble just due to the dilapidated roads.
“Although the plan to rebuild Shahrah-i-Orangi was initiated along with seven other road projects, in 1997-98, under Long-Life Road Project launched by the then city mayor Dr Farooq Sattar, all other projects, except for the Shahrah, have been completed a long time ago,” he added.
BANARAS CHOWK: The Banaras Chowk improvement project, which was conceived keeping in view the transport requirements of the residents of Orangi Town, Qasba Town and Metroville, has not yet been completed despite a lapse of more than a year since its launching.
The work on this project was started in August 2002 under Khushhal Pakistan Project at an estimated cost of Rs46 million, but it lingered on owing to an old major pipeline and heavy encroachment around Banaras Chowk.
Only recently, the encroachments have been removed and City Nazim Naimatullah Khan has now fixed Oct 15 as the deadline for the completion of the improvement project and re-opening of Banaras Chowk for vehicular traffic.
