KARACHI: There doesn’t seem to be a solution to or a fix for the overflowing gutters on M.A. Jinnah Road near the Plaza Market, which has made life difficult for motorists, pedestrians and shopkeepers there, it emerged on Tuesday.

In fact the problem seems to be growing as similar situations were witnessed at Lucky Star, around the Hotel Metropole and Saddar where pedestrians tried to find a clean foothold as they walked with rolled up pants and shalwar with one hand pinching their nose and motorists thought twice before parking anywhere as hapless shopkeepers watched customers turning away.

“It has been like this for three whole days now. Business, too, has nosedived. Maybe we should trade professions with Karachi Metropolitan Corporation workers in order to bring a change in matters here for they certainly are not doing their job,” grumbled Mazhar Abbas, owner of an automobile accessories shop on the main M.A. Jinnah Road.

“This is the Plaza Market for automobiles. People park their cars by our footpaths and our boys work on these very roadsides that are now under water to change wheel caps, door locks, seat covers or add accessories to cars. How is all that even possible with overflowing gutters and sewers all around?” asked Intikhab Afzal sitting helplessly at his shop on the road.

“I thought, this being the third day of tolerating this nuisance, maybe the water has dried up a little but on closer inspection I realised that it is only being spread out through car tyres that pass through it,” observed Ijaz Hussain, another shopkeeper.

“We have been complaining to the KMC but it doesn’t seem to have had any effect so far,” said Mohammad Asif Khan. “We have also heard reports about this being a political thing with one party trying to make another look bad by blocking the gutters with gunny or plastic bags but we work here and we know that the gutters have not been cleaned out for ages. All they need to do is clean up the choked gutters,” he added.

On M.A. Jinnah Road, especially near Tibet Centre, motorists met massive traffic jams. Everyone was trying to drive around the dirty water creating more jams.

Meanwhile, with the system choked, overflowing sewers were also witnessed at Lucky Star, the Hotel Metropole and Saddar. “I have been watching this for 27 years now. We find sewage flooding the roads here every other week. We are quite used to it, actually,” commented a cylinder shop owner at Lucky Star.

Published in Dawn, January 13th, 2016