| January 22, 2006 | Sunday | Zilhaj 21, 1426 |
Orangi — the other side of the coin
AGAIN there is talk of giving Lahore a light rail transit system. The chief minister has reportedly formed another committee of experts to prepare a feasibility for commissioning an efficient transport system, with the city district government endorsing the plan all the way. No deadline has been set for the committee to report back on the project, or at least that was expression gathered from the way the plan was reported by the media. Such plans have come and gone, at least on three occasions, between the early 1990s and now, with the light rail project remaining a dream unfulfilled.
Meanwhile, the chief minister has also directed the authorities concerned to formulate a traffic regulation plan for Punjab’s major cities. There was also a hint of forming a separate traffic police entity, a metropolitan police, for Lahore, which the city nazim said would be fashioned after the Motorway Police. Ask any poor motorcyclist who is routinely abused and fleeced by the existing traffic police on one shady pretext or the other, and he’ll tell you that such a scheme, if implemented, will be truly a dream come true.
Punjab ministers are in the habit of boasting that there is no dearth of development funds with the province for various sectors, and one has reason to believe that public transport should be no exception. What, then, is delaying the revamping of this crucial sector that has a direct bearing on the citizens’ quality of life in our urban centres? As far as Lahore is concerned, both the city and the provincial governments seem to be on the same wavelength, as one is never heard being in conflict with the other, which makes the delays in this regard all the more incomprehensible. Is it the will that is not entirely there to get on with what the leaders and city managers keep promising? One hopes not case.
The growth in the number of vehicles in Lahore is reportedly taking place at the rate of 15 per cent per annum. This does not only add to congestion but also to the levels of air pollution. A recent study recorded the high number of harmful suspended particles in the city air at various places. It was a whopping 963 PM10 at the Charing Cross, the WHO PM standard for clean urban air being 150. The Minar-i-Pakistan area, with 882 PM10 was the second most polluted and unfit to breathe in part of town. The study concluded by saying that of the 63,000 deaths reported in Lahore every year, an estimated 1,250 could be attributed to fatal diseases caused by air pollution.
One of the effective and logical ways of containing the rise in air pollution is to reduce the commuters’ reliance on personal transport vehicles, as is the norm in most-developed countries. Next door in India, for instance, Delhi’s pollution and congestion problems have been reduced significantly by making it mandatory for all public transport to run on CNG and also, lately, by the coming into operation of a modern urban rail transit system. There is every hope that if this tried and tested global approach to urban management is implemented without any further tarrying with the idea, it will bring order to the traffic mess in this city, too.
THE Jamaat-i-Islami-led MMA held protest rallies against the mixed-gender marathon planned to be held in the city on Jan 29. Though not a big affair, that is, going by the headcount of participants anywhere, the protest was given ample coverage by the media. For its part, the Punjab government has vowed to hold the race, come rain or shine, cheer or protest. Elaborate security arrangements have been announced to keep any potential miscreants from disrupting the international event in which more than 25,000 people will be taking part.
There was a stark comparison between the ease and the agitation shown, respectively, by the government when the MMA held the protest rallies last Friday and the previous week when the city administration stopped the opposition ARD from taking out a rally. Section 144, that colonial ploy to thwart any popular public outrage against an unpopular government move, was imposed and the rally stopped. It’s either the government thinks that the MMA is not a popular entity and thus there is no danger of it getting the people to take to the street or that it chooses to discriminate between the two opposition outfits. Take your pick. *** THE Lahore-Amritsar bus service finally began its regular run between the two bordering cities on Friday, with the first Pakistani bus crossing over Wagah. The service is based on a reciprocal arrangement whereby an Indian bus will also come into Lahore every Tuesday. Mostly Sikh pilgrims, and not Pakistanis, are likely to benefit from the service as the Indian government had earlier turned down the proposal to set up consular services at the border to facilitate cross-border travel between the two Punjabs.
Pakistanis are usually not granted a visa to travel to the Indian Punjab, and have to go straight to Delhi even if they cross the border by bus or train. This goes to show how bureaucratic glitches continue to throw a spanner in the way of the unconditional commitments made by both countries to encouraging people-to-people contacts. The opening up of consular offices in Karachi and Mumbai has also been a victim of the same mentality. Pakistan has faced tremendous difficulty in obtaining a rented space for its office in the Maharashtra capital, while protocol dictates that both Karachi and Mumbai consulates become operational simultaneously.
A VISITING Indian journalist, while filing his stories to publications back home and also writing for a number of London and New York-based papers, has referred to Lahore as “the most happening of South Asian cities.” The flattering title came as Amit Varma was entertained by his newfound Lahorite friends, who he said showed him a good time, what with a mid-afternoon qawwali at a shrine, the sight of “whiling dervishes” at another, a trip to the food street at night and lots more. Moving on to Faisalabad to cover the cricket series left him sad, he wrote. —OBSERVER
As one focuses on a deplorably dilapidated main road from Banaras to Orangi, one thought that crosses the mind is that there is a pathetic neglect of that part of Karachi. By whom? That’s the question that we need to answer. Certainly by society as a whole. But I am sure that there are specific departments and decision makers who are more responsible than others.
For all the attention that is given to the developed parts of Karachi, and for all the media focus there is on even small streets and by-lanes in Clifton and Defence, and PECHS and KDA Scheme No 1, and so on, it is truly shameful that a main road in Orangi that is used by thousands and thousands of men, women and children is in an absolutely unusable condition. Yet that is the only way to reach Orangi’s residential and commercial areas. Think of what the ailing and the old go through on that road. The humiliation is so obvious for all.
I volunteered happily to travel to Orangi last weekend at around 8pm for personal reasons. It was years ago that I had gone to Orangi. In a way I needed an update. In fact, I need more update. And from the responses and answers that at least half a dozen people (educated and affluent) have given me, one gets the feeling that places like Orangi are vast localities, low on priority, and possibly sidelined? Contrast the fountain that the KPT has just built, a pride for Karachi, indeed? When in our life and times will Orangi ever become deserving and worthy of having a fountain, or an underpass, or decent pavements? When will little girls, like this exceptionally brilliant four-year-old Laiba Aslam, get the quality education that she deserves, in Orangi.
I sat in the car as it rocked on the Orangi road, broken, with sewerage water stagnant on it, and angry thoughts came to mind. As did disturbing contrasting images of the developed parts of the city, in what appears to be a deep divide, with the chaotic chasm widening. The rich-poor divide? Something to that effect.
A part of me felt guilty for not having either been to Orangi or written about it. But what is also disappointing (yet not surprising) is that even the print media which is grumbling and groaning about the civic issues and environmental problems and lapses, all the time has attached small priority (if at all ) to Orangi, Landhi, Korangi and other suburbs, and far flung areas. All the planning done and the promises made seem meaningless after a tired, weary citizen travels on that kind of a road, day in and day out.
On that Saturday evening there was no traffic jam, luckily, but one can visualize traffic chaos on that road. If Karachi’s upper class Sharea Faisal can be clogged, it is easy to imagine what happens from Banaras to the end of Orangi. I had gone only half way, to Orangi number 5.
It is relevant to mention here that City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal, speaking at the first session of the newly-elected council, took specific note of the fact that “roads are being repaired and improved with a huge cost.” And then he announced that he had decided to award a prize to those firms which would complete their projects six months ahead of schedule. One may suggest that what needs to be kept in mind is that the job should be completed on time and with quality, and not just completed!!
One Karachiite has suggested that the new local bodies set-up should take up this Orangi main road on a priority basis. The city nazim said at that meeting that “work has been started on projects worth over Rs9 billion and these development projects would be completed within one or two years, while within one year, people would start witnessing a positive change.” He has also indicated that international donor agencies have also agreed to invest in Karachi.
One citizen wondered whether there would be some investment in backward areas like Orangi also. The council session also heard the city nazim acknowledging that people were facing immense problems in the transport sector. And the fact is that this problem is getting worse, almost on a daily basis, as new vehicles (especially private ones) are being added to the roads in a manner that reflects the fact the public transport sector is not developing adequately to keep pace with the rising population. A recent news report indicates that the sales of private cars are increasing all the time, and that this is not the case of public transport vehicles. Having said this of the increasing number of vehicles on city roads brings in the point about the city council planning parking plazas in Karachi. This is indeed an interesting proposition , even needed really. But the question is where will the land come from? Surely, the city government or other relevant authorities are not planning to deprive the city of some more parks and playgrounds as has been our practice. We have a culture that condones all this eventually. It is pertinent to recall here that there is perhaps not a single multi-storeyed building, or a five-star hotel, or a club in Karachi which has adequate parking space in its plan, original or revised. They all utilize public space. The same is true for most residential areas.
Currently, there is a major reservation that is being expressed in the media about a parking plaza. This has been done by residents of Lines Area and parents of the students enrolled at the St Patrick’s Boys High School and the Islamia Girls College. A meeting held last week in this connection had the citizens underlining that neither the master plan nor the schemes of the Lines Area Redevelopment Project had any provision for multi-storeyed car parking.
In fact, there was a demand that the intercity bus terminus that is located near the Taj Medical Complex and the Hamdard Hospital should be removed from its present position. How much of a nuisance and harassment it is to those who have to go to this area, especially is unimaginable. That a large number of patients visit doctors’ clinics, pathological laboratories and the hospital.
City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal has spoken of a multi-storeyed car parking plaza in the city. No site has been mentioned. One prays that it is not at the cost of another public utility. On this point about car parking, one takes this opportunity of giving vent to public disgust there is at the fact that car parking is virtually an impossible proposition. And a reflection of this woeful, nerve-shattering shortage is the fact that one five-star hotel (Karachi Sheraton Hotel) has raised its rates for car parking to Rs30 per hour. Or Rs140 for the day. Or Rs3000 for a month.
Orangi is the other side of the coin. Isn’t it?