The draft proposal for Karachi’s Master Plan is going to be finalised this month. In a recent meeting of the ‘coordinated board’ set up to fine tune the Master Plan, it was discussed that all the stakeholders ‘will be’ consulted by the coordination committee. Chaired by the Governor Sindh, the meeting also highlighted the sensitive issue of ‘lack of understanding between the various functional organisations’ and the resultant delay in implementing the Plan.
The 2020 Master plan for Karachi gives a set of rules for land use irrespective of who owns the land. While it details an elaborate roll out strategy with regulations and outlines for improving infrastructure, the fact that all stakeholders are yet to be consulted gives a colour of ad-hocism to the whole process being undertaken by the City District Government Karachi with such fanfare.
How can a Master Plan of a mega city even be contemplated before all the land owning agencies are in harmony? A Master Plan must entail chalking out a framework, and policy guidelines based on socio-economic structure, existing land use and future population growth. But without consulting the stakeholders BEFORE outlining the Master Plan, can a solid, well defined Plan be made? Anything added in the last stage before finalising will only mean cutting corners on the larger picture.
Last year in December, a presentation on the fist draft of the Master Plan 2020 was made to a group of technical experts at the Institute of Architects, Pakistan. But that, say the technical experts present, was a hurried consultation in which many areas that were left out at the planning stage could not even come under discussion. The one crucial objection that was put forth by Arif Hassan of the Urban Resource Centre at the time was that the economic survey carried out during preparation of the Master Plan was only conducted on 5,000 families, which is an extremely small sample for a city of almost 15 million.
At present, there are still many areas being worked on separately by different civic agencies which has created mass chaos in the city specially effecting traffic movements in all the different zones of Karachi. Parking and pedestrian issues haven’t been incorporated in any road construction projects either.
It is obvious that once again the emphasis of the city government is more on adding ‘another historic landmark’ to the hurried list of achievements under their rule, a statement to the effect already made by the city government.
Of the various mega projects begun last year only few have been completed and construction work (again, unplanned and improvised) continues. The Sohrab Goth flyover (which was stopped at least twice due to non-availability of funds as claimed by the city government) is still under construction. Also pending are; flyovers linking Shah Faisal Colony and Korangi; the Quaidabad flyover; the road linking Super Highway with the National Highway; the Hino Pak flyover and several other projects, which were initiated in 2005 and were not even completed during 2006. Being a part of the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme it is presumed that the funds were available, but still the projects did not see completion.
For the past four years now, Karachi has been going through rigorous face lifts of different kinds. The Tameer-i-Karachi programme initiated in the tenure of Naimatullah Khan as the mayor, was the first time that due attention was given to this megalopolis by the federal government. The President had forwarded Rs29 billion for immediate works. Since then – apart from the budget annually allocated to the city government – a number of extra packages have been forwarded for work in Karachi. The last was the Rs42 billion allotted to the present city government as an extraordinary package for Karachi’s upliftment.
While many ‘landmark achievements’ still go to the city government’s credit (including the gift of the second largest water jet given to the city under the aegis of the KPT), unplanned undertaking is the nagging issue for town planners at this point who feel that all infrastructure needs are being addressed haphazardly. The storm-water drain project in Bath Island and on main Clifton road is still far from being completed, and the mismanaged manner in which it is progressing is obvious to any layman. The construction contractors too have changed hands and now a Chinese firm is handling it. And while the work continues, the chaos around the area too continues.
What is unclear is that will all these separate construction sites come under the Master Plan – unclear because the jurisdiction for the drain projects are different – or are these autonomous projects?
And what about the traffic management when road networking will be taking place? When the Clifton underpass project began, the traffic police department was NOT consulted before cutting off access for road users to main arteries and the result was a mass chaos during the entire construction process. Neither were maps of the underlying pipes and other utility lines consulted and hence many utility lines were damaged at the time as was the flow of sewerage water (which soon after resulted in an even bigger calamity).
Most pertinent in the Master Plan should be the road network planning and the inclusion of mass transit and Karachi Circular Railway system. Since details of the Plan have not been made public to the media yet, this is the crucial question which has been bothering all those dealing with traffic and road issues. No plan for Karachi can be effective without immediately addressing the issue of traffic and enabling a mass transit system to reduce the escalating mess on the roads.
To immediately reduce the traffic on the roads and ease travel time and increase commuting options, enabling the Karachi Circular Railway should be the FIRST agenda point on the Master Plan. But with key consultations yet to be carried out and with the media still in the dark about the Plan’s details it is not known whether the mass transit is part of it.
