Mega projects or sources of nuisance!
I have been thinking about the Clifton underpass in my own time, and the contemplation is a source of torment, to say the least. There are varying degrees of disgust and anger (even fear of being targeted by street crime while being stranded in one of those daily traffic jams) that one hears from the citizens who have to depend on the several roads, streets and by lanes in and around the Clifton area. What Karachiites find very strange about this mega project, called the underpass, that there is a sort of silence about the date when it will be completed. When will this ordeal end?
There are different versions and dates. Some believe that the underpass will be completed by the end of this year. There are others who contend that it will be completed by June next. There are still others who believe that this underpass could become one of those projects that could inordinately delay. Why can’t there be a clear-cut schedule announced about the completion of this project? And why the public can’t be taken into confidence about all the other projects, in the city?
Road closures mean misery in most cases in a city where the number of vehicles is increasing “dangerously” on a daily-basis.
Admittedly work on the underpass is on round the clock. A teenaged salesman I spoke, whose retail outlet is on the service road, was impressed at the pace of the work, and what he considered the untiring efforts being made by the men working at the site. But this teenage salesman’s buoyancy could not be translated into the collective attitude of most people who suffer traffic jams daily.
I had originally wanted to begin this time with the daily grind that Karachiites bear (in humiliation!) when they use the Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman Road, from the Submarine Chowk as they move towards the Cantonment area (in one direction) or towards the Saudi consulate in Defence Phase V in the opposite direction. In fact it is not as simple as it sounds. Even getting to Sunset Boulevaard from Submarine chowk can be a hazardous challenge.
What needs to be highlighted here is a small patch of a dug-up road on the Khaliquzzaman Road, after the traffic lights, which serves as another bottleneck for the dense traffic, after the lights have gone from red to green. A soft-spoken driver, who uses this road daily, wonders aloud “why can’t the concerned authorities either repair this patch or at least fill it up with bare sand, so that the traffic can move.”
His gentle manner of speaking is something that is so contrasting with the bitterness of drivers blowing their horns, almost repeatedly.
One would have imagined that given the fact that the Khaliquzzaman Road, and other roads in and around the Clifton area have gained in significance due to the closure of the main road, they would be properly maintained. Instead what has emerged is the fact that almost all the roads here are in a shambles and evoke nothing but the wrath of the residents.
Surely those in charge of the civic and administrative matters are aware of the agonies that are being experienced by the people. Let me bring in here the time that is wasted in travelling on these roads. Vehicles being subjected to accelerated wear and tear may also be kept in mind. People try all kinds of routes, and diversions, in what is seen to be a game of changing combinations to get to work and back. Others simply have to drive through to get to other places.
But whether it is the Mai Kolachi route option, or the Clifton-Bath Island option, or the Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman road option there is no relief. There is only dust and disgust, remarked one person who is looking forward to the day when the underpass will be completed and become operational.
With reference to the dug up patch on Chaudhry Khaliquzzaman Road, some facets of the daily confusion and congestion tend to symbolize many other places in Karachi.
Two civic frustrations stand out amidst the prosperity and merriment of the citizens of this metropolitan city. The garbage collection on this road is an eye sore, in terms of how it is collected after it is allowed to get heaped daily. The other is the road repair that will not be carried out. These are the two of the recurring frustrations of Karachi, and what better time than after the local body polls to talk about them.
On this road, whose importance has grown in the last six months, there are signs of elitism and sophistication making inroads, as commercialization of Karachi’s main roads and strategic streets carries on. There are huge billboards at the Submarine Chowk now, getting bigger with time. There are schools, there are carpet and marble outlets, there are stores for the best of electrical gadgets, and expensive fruit shops, pavement-based barbeque delights, a cellphone company has added to the glow here, and of course there are the latest models of leased cars that ply ,but in chaos. The inmates wonder when this nightmare caused by the building of a dream, called underpass, will come to an end. And whenever it ends one hope that this area will be cleansed of the heavy duty vehicles (private and public both) that ply on the Khayaban-i-Jami and the adjoining arteries once and for all.
Their notorious role in the present situation of paralyzing traffic and terrorizing the smaller vehicles is well-known. The local administration imposes restrictions on their movement, in vain. The futility is writ not just in Clifton, but all over the city, it seems.
A cynic’s day out
So the ruling League swept the polls in Lahore and in the rest of the province, as we were to discover, predictably, the morning after. For their part, the opposition parties are a hardy lot; they just don’t give up, do they? A somewhat cynical senior colleague who reserves an equal amount of disdain for politicians and the ruling establishment refused to comment on the entire exercise.
The only new thing, he said, was the high number of casualties in the just concluded affair. But, then, we had the police to take care of that aspect, too. The Lahore police chief said not all six deaths reported in Lahore were election-related. Personal rivalries, he said, were known to take such a toll in and around the city on a given bad day.
An eerie sense of gloom, the like of which you see on an Ashura holiday, gripped the city on the election day. The markets were closed; the banks, even though they were open, wore a deserted look, and the roads looked forlorn. Even the beggars remained off the street. The evening, too, was much quieter in parts of town that are otherwise known for the presence of eating out crowds, and what have you. Yet, it wasn’t the kind of sleepy calm you associated with the Lahore, say, of some 15 years ago, after dark.
So what has happened? Why this lack of interest and couldn’t-care-less attitude on the part of Zinda Dilaan-i-Lahore? You need only to ask the man in the street to get your answer. If you want it in one word, it is inflation. The free-for-all market economy has just wreaked havoc on an average household’s budget.
Meanwhile, the born-again democracy has become the sole prerogative of the newly rich and mighty. If feudalism and mafia-like popular movements in the past dogged and distorted the classical democracy here, it is the nouveau riche and the emerging neo-bourgeois variety that is now completing the job.
Just look at those contesting the elections on the reserved seats for workers and peasants; many of them drive around in flashy cars as if they belong to the working class or the over-subsidized peasantry of the developed world. Where, in all of this, do the common man and his problems, or even his protestations, figure? He, then, is condemned to exercise his right to disenfranchise himself. The alienation, for many, is complete, and those ruling the roost say it’s just as well.
TALKING to Lahore’s media corps on Saturday, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, as usual, was very upbeat about the state of the economy as he completed a full year in office. He said the UN figures, giving Pakistan 142nd place in the human development index were two years’ old. The trickling down of the benefits of the 8.4 per cent growth rate achieved last fiscal year had begun, and new data expected to be tabulated by the end of the year would prove that, he said.
The prime minister then broke into explaining at great length what the term ‘trickle down effect’ actually meant. A lengthy explanation of his government’s poverty alleviation strategy followed suit, whereby the chief executive explained that handing down money to all the poor people in the country would result in emptying the government’s coffers, so he wouldn’t do that. What’s worse, he said, the poor people, even if they were given the money, would spend it fast and go back to being poor again.
The PM said that his government had, therefore, decided to tread the wiser course and started creating economic opportunities for people. However, not all people, he warned, were capable of taking advantage of such opportunities, and so, some of them would remain poor. He also put to rest misgivings about the lack of government control over inflation, and explained that the government had not abdicated its role of being a regulator of market prices of everyday commodities. He concluded by saying that regulatory bodies and mechanisms were very much in place, and that he was personally satisfied with their working.
On the local government elections, the PM was equally upbeat and made light of the opposition’s allegations of rigging. He said the tradition of accepting defeat had yet to take root in this country. This, he promised, would take time. He congratulated the winners, and thanked the people of Punjab for a high turnout across the province.
The pressmen who attended the meeting came out wiser and better informed about the real state of the economy and democracy in the country. Some, however, took to heart the PM’s parting words, requesting for constructive criticism and not criticism for the mere sake of it.
THE erstwhile city Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood has predicted victory not only for himself but all PML-backed town nazims-to-be in the final phase of the local polls, culminating in the election of nazims and their deputies. This means that the incoming city government will effect consistency in the policies initiated by the outgoing one.
In real terms, it means more commercialization of the few remaining, boring and sleepy, residential areas of Lahore. Open spaces that have been going to waste all these years will also be considered for building shopping malls and cineplexes, the like of which is being constructed at what was once the ungainly doongi ground on Gulberg’s M.M Alam Road. There is so much liquidity in the market, as the PM also observed the other day, that money needs to change hands for the economy to keep growing.
In all earnestness, we are told, the objective in doing so is to speed up economic activity and create more opportunities. Besides, the millions that will be collected in commercialization fees, can then be spent on carrying out development and public welfare works. These thoughts offer the much needed solace and hope for brighter days ahead.
So watch out, Lahore. Party time is coming and it’s going to be one heck of a party. — OBSERVER