KARACHI, May 5: City Nazim Mustafa Kamal has said that non-availability of appropriate parking facilities has been one of the major reasons for traffic problems in the city.

He was addressing a meeting, held to review the transport system, at Civic Centre here on Friday.

Mustafa Kamal said that the city government was immediately constructing parking plazas at seven locations. He said that though the city needs would not be fully met with these parking plazas, work in this direction would continue until the problem was fully solved.

He said that work was going on in various sections to improve the transport system. He said if people would not be provided parking facilities, the vehicles would be parked on roads. He pointed out that on one hand underpasses, flyovers and roads were being constructed in Karachi, on the other work was in progress on bus terminal outside the city for inter-provincial buses.

The nazim observed that traffic problems would reduce considerably after completion of Southern Bypass, Lyari Expressway, Elevated Expressway at Sharea Faisal and parking plazas. However, these schemes would take time for completion and people would see a changed Karachi in 2007.

He referred to migration to cities world over and said that six to seven per cent people moved from villages to cities. In Pakistan, most pressure in this respect was on Karachi where population was growing at six per cent and, therefore, there was need to introduce technology in every field.

He asked the experts to submit their proposals in the next meeting keeping the ground realities in view as to which technology would be more suitable for Karachi.

The nazim said that the use of technology for solving transport problems had become imperative. —APP