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KARACHI, March 7: Despite oft-repeated pledges and promises, almost all development projects for the city, including those which were initiated by the present government, have been in limbo.
Official sources told Dawn on Thursday that many uplift projects in the city had been abandoned after a change of government on Oct 12, 1999.
They said that incidentally some those projects which had been announced by President Gen Pervez Musharraf had also been a victim of neglect.
They added that the neglected projects included Sohrab Goth Park, Hyatt Regency, Indoor Sports Complex, Sharea Faisal flyover, FTC flyover, Naya Ghar, etc.
The Karachi Circular Railway is the most important project of the city which is constantly being put in cold storage by the official machinery on one pretext or another.
Three major projects, costing over Rs443 million, were announced last August by the president himself. They were supposed to complete within two years. But even these projects have failed to take off. Such little progress has been made on the projects of Sharae Faisal flyovers, and Naya Ghar scheme — which were announced with great enthusiasm — that many people fear that they will take a very long time to be completed.
PARKS: Successive governments made promises about three parks in the city: Sohrab Goth, Sabzi Mandi and Gutter Baghicha. Little progress has been made on these projects.
The proposed Sohrab Goth park, spread over 20 acres at the city entry point, was promised by the city administration about two years back.
Although the authorities made a commitment at the time of removal of encroachments from the locality that development work on the site would begin from next week — by the third week of Nov 1999 — the open area at Sohrab Goth had turned either into a parking-lot for inter city buses or been occupied by people of small businesses earning their livelihood by selling fruits and other items on pushcarts.
Despite reports that the plot of old Sabzi Mandi was handed over to the army for developing it into a beautiful park, nothing seems to have been done — even its fencing has not been carried out.
The Karachi city government, which has started to face-lift the city by removing encroachments, has decided to convert the Gutter Baghicha into a beautiful park. But soon it came out that SITE has encroached a part of land belonging to defunct Karachi Metropolitan Corporation in Gutter Baghicha.
KCR: The Karachi Circular Railway was to be relaunched from May 1, 2001, under the new management to provide fast, economical and comfortable transport facility to the people.
The KCR made its debut some time in 1969 with 14 up and 14 down trains. It is popular among middle class, lower-middle class and workers for shuttling between home and the work place as the city expands. In 1975 transporters used their clout to put an end to Mohammad Ali Tramway Company, thus depriving citizens of a cheap mode of transport between Garden, M.A. Jinnah Road, Mereweather Tower, Keamari, Soldier Bazar, Saddar and Cantonment Railway Station.
With the death of the tramway in the city, transporters kept on increasing their influence so much so that every time the government tried to induct a new transport service, soon its buses would end up in a junkyard. The fare of the KCR in 1980 used to be 25 paisas. At the time of its suspension its one-way journey used to cost Rs2 only.
