Following the rulers' make-and-break-pledges tradition, City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal has failed to keep his word on presenting the University Road as a New Year gift to Karachiites as the "Work in Progress" board is still hanging on one of the city's busiest roads.
When contacted, the City Nazim said that Liaquatbagh tragedy and the post-December 27 violence in Karachi had broken the momentum of work on road and caused delay. "Once the momentum of work is broken, things are difficult to be managed... it would not last for too long and we are very much on to inaugurate the road this month," said the determined Nazim.
On utility cables that are lying in open awaiting placement, the City Nazim said they "belong to the KESC and would be put into the footpaths after their construction."
On November 29, 2007, during a late night visit to University Road, the City Nazim in his talks with media representatives had assured the Karachiites of getting the completion-thirsty road as a New Year (2008) "gift" from the City District Government Karachi (CDGK).
He had boastfully said that construction of the University Road would be completed on an accelerated pace by December 31, 2007, as the CDGK was done with 90 percent work of water, sewerage and basic infrastructure.
Quite contrary to this, daily commuters and business and social strata, located on the road from Jail Chowrangi to Civic Centre, are still breathing hard under incalculable hardships of civil and commercial nature since start-up of the project in August 2005.
The University Road project while has been a permanent source of trouble for the commuters, it has equally put disastrous impacts on the businesses of those shops, outlets and offices located on it. Indiscriminate digging by the utilities has not only left the people living in areas adjacent to the Road stuck with persistent sewerage problems but also kept the customers away from the business outlets.
"We have faced incalculable financial losses and it is still to go on... dug up roads have destroyed our business", complained manager of a petrol pump located on the Road. Many shop owners have winded up their businesses due to shortage or a complete disappearance of the customers at their once flourishing business units.
"I closed my shop after reconstruction of the road was started, as no customer (mostly Rickshaw drivers) could reach the shop", said a desperate Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) seller.
Interestingly, the CDGK itself has not been able to remain unaffected from the negative implications of the disorderly digging at University Road as the Civic Centre has long been complaining of disconnection of its entire telecommunication network.
"Dug up roads at University Road had left us with no communication network at all since Ramzan and now EDOs (Executive District Officers) are using wireless telephones provided by the National Telecommunication Corporation (NTC)," said a CDGK official.
Other business centres at the Road including fuel stations, offices and shops have also been persistent in complaining telephone disconnection as dug-up roads had left their underground phone cables completely damaged.
By working irresponsibly and on a snail pace at sites of the CDGK-run developmental projects across the city, the utilities like Karachi Water and Sewerage Board (KWSB), Pakistan Telecommunication Company Limited (PTCL), Karachi Electric Supply Corporation (KESC) etc have put the image-conscious CDGK in an unjustifiable disrepute.
A one-way traffic at University Road is still there to cause daily traffic jams or at least slow the pace of vehicular movement causing delay to the commuters particularly students and workers who usually remain in hurry to reach their respective destinations on time. Illegal car parking on two sides of the road in front of Civic Centre can also be seen giving further impetus to the traffic trouble.
The CDGK has been quite confusingly helpless in giving an accurate project completion date as initially the Works and Services department had set August 2007 as a deadline.
But, the CDGK had to change its mind when a "No" came from Pakistan International Airlines (PIA), founder of the project under Tameer-e-Karachi Program (TKP) on bridge-financing basis, and it eyed April 2008 as an ultimate completion deadline after an OK from the Sindh Government as a new financier.
The project, however, still seems a bit far from completion as the consultants (Techno Consultants International) and labours had already contradicted the City Nazim's claim on completing the project on stipulated time and anticipated that the project would take another four to 12 months to be accomplished.
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