The aim of raising the shelters was to provide sitting facility, especially in summers, besides ensuring safety of those waiting for bus, minibus, etc.
A recent survey of various areas, including Nazimabad, Shahrah-i-Pakistan, Sharea Faisal, Burns Road, Lucky Star, Old Numaish, University Road and Hub River Road, shows that while a large number of the shelters have already vanished after suffering a gradual decay, 70 to 80 per cent of the usable ones are occupied by addicts, vendors, cigarette and pan shops, and newspaper hawkers. Some of them have even been turned into dump site for garbage.
The road between Nazimabad and the SITE has several such shelters along it none of them is in use by people as they are risky due to being heavily damaged. One of them houses a mechanic’s workshop while another one, opposite Habib Bank Site branch, has been turned into addicts’ abode.
Similar is the condition of those located on Burns Road where addicts use these shelters even as toilets creating a permanent nuisance for the residents of the nearby localities as well as travellers. These shelters have become a big source of foul smell.
Owner of a shop in front of a shelter on Burns Road observed that he had never seen a person standing under it for the purpose of waiting for a bus because it had been under the occupation of addicts for many years. No department has bothered to restore the shelter to its original status, he lamented.
A girls college is located very close to this shelter and students not only use the adjoining artery quite frequently, but badly need the shelter while waiting for public transport there. However, they have to avoid the shelter and stay under the open amid scorching heat due to the foul smell emanating from the shelter-cum-toilet, the shopkeeper said.
Likewise, a shelter at the Old Numaish roundabout has been occupied by a puncture repairer and a tea shop whereas anther one, near New Town roundabout on University Road, by addicts and beggars.
Most of the shelters on Sharea Faisal have been occupied by tea shops and newspaper hawkers like the one near the FTC building.
A shelter on Hub River Road has completely destroyed and its rubble is scattered all around it site.
Talking to PPI, people in different areas expressed their resentment over the relevant authorities apathy towards this civic problem. Many of them reminded the government functionaries that raising a structure was not difficult, but to maintain it was really credible. Government departments have miserably failed to make their performance credible, they added.
According to an official in the city government, there are between 70 and 80 shelters in the city and most of them were raised by the defunct KMC and KDA. However, the concerned departments’ apathy have ruined the shelters, he observed.
There are some shelters raised in collaboration with a commercial bank. Interestingly, they are comparatively in better condition and still serve the purpose for which they were raised.
The city government official pointed out that no repairing or renovating work had ever been undertaken for the proper maintenance of the government funded shelters that had cost millions of rupees.
He observed that there was no policy under which the shelters could be made beneficial to the general public nor was there a plan to remove the occupants, most of them addicts. “I do not foresee any policy on the anvil,” he added.
It may be noted that the city government plans to construct new bus shelters in the city with the assistance of private sector on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis for which proposals have been invited. However, it does not have a clear view over the revitalization of the existing shelters.—PPI