KARACHI: Tankers, digging blocking flow of traffic
By Azizullah Sharif
KARACHI, July 26: A major portion of one track of New M. A. Jinnah Road has become almost impassable owing to surfacing of pointed gravels in abundance all along it, causing damage to vehicles and slowing down movement of vehicular traffic. This portion is stretched from Dawood College to Islamia Science College.
Though another track of this road has already been reconstructed to ensure a smooth traffic movement between the Central Jail intersection and Mazar-i-Quaid, the third track, uprooted owing to the leaking nozzles of hundreds of tankers using it after drawing water from the two Rangers-manned hydrants of Muslimabad, is yet to be rebuilt.
The sudden resumption of tanker service using the already damaged portion of New M. A. Jinnah Road, mostly from wrong side, and the parking of a large number of cars along the two lanes of the recently reconstructed track, are the factors mainly responsible for frequent and prolonged traffic jams on this road.
A number of cars belonging to various show-rooms, which have sprung up in a large number on either side of the road, often remain parked on the two lanes of both the tracks, leaving merely one lane on either side clear for traffic, thus resulting in traffic jams, especially during peak hours.
Moreover, when any driver of the hundreds of tankers makes a short-cut to the Muslimabad hydrants, his vehicle appears on the road from the opposite direction, either from Islamia College side or different adjacent streets. This often creates a risk of head-on collision between a tanker and the vehicles approaching either towards Quaid’s Mausoleum or Gurumandir traffic intersection from Jail traffic intersection.
Another adjacent artery, Dadabhoy Nauroji Road, and a number of streets of Muslimabad have developed deep craters and potholes due to the water leaking from these tankers’ nozzles.
People residing in Muslimabad and the nearby locality of Shikarpur Colony are the worst sufferers of nuisance created by the presence of the hydrants as the drivers of the tankers park their vehicles not only along the boundary walls of their houses but also in front of the main gates of their bungalows.
Residents of Muslimabad have complained that they cannot even sit in the lawns of their houses as drivers and cleaners of the parked tankers would not only use abusive language against each other loudly but would also usurp their privacy by sitting atop their tankers for hours.
They deplored that all their requests for shifting of the hydrants to some other places had, so far, remain unheeded. They said it was beyond their comprehension that why the government had allowed functioning of hydrants in their locality, a purely residential area, while no locality within Muslimabad or its neighbourhood benefited from them.
At one of the two hydrants visited recently, a large number of women, mostly belonging to Mehmoodabad and Akhtar Colony, was seen standing in a long queue for registering a request for a water tanker.
One of the women told this reporter that she had to come because her husband could not take leave from his office off and on for this purpose. Another woman said: “I have been waiting for the last two hours to get a slip and still I don’t know how much time it will take.”
