Residents await completion of Malir 15 Flyover

Earlier, the blame for the delay was placed on the P&D dept, which had to release payments

KARACHI:

The Malir 15 Flyover has yet to see the light of the day even after two-and-a-half years of work going on.

In the month of September the blame for the delay was placed on the Planning and Development (P&D) Department, which is financing the project. This time, it's the fault of the traffic police, according to an official of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC).



An official at the construction site had told The Express Tribune in the month of September that the flyover's construction had been progressing at a snail's pace mainly because of the delay in the payments of the flyover by the P&D department.

However, the flyover's then project director, Syed Muhammad Taha, gave assurance that by November 15, both the tracks of the flyover, from Malir 15 bus stop to Millat Bakery, will be opened. He said that another track from Azeempura to Malir 15 will be constructed later, which can take more time due to the delayed payments and illegal constructions in the area.

With more than one month gone, the residents of the area and the industries, which include Landhi Association of Trade and Industry (Lati) and Bin Qasim Association of Trade and Industry (Bqati) eagerly wait for the construction to end.

The general secretary of Lati, Mobeen Khan, told The Express Tribune that they have been facing severe economic losses due to the delay in the construction of the flyover. "Our fuel and time, which should be invested in the production, is being wasted for hours in traffic mess at Malir 15," he said.

He said that even the alternative route at Korangi's Dawood Chowrangi was in a very bad condition. Ditches of various sizes on that road also affect the traffic.

Meanwhile, an official of Bqati said that the road networks are the lifeline of industries. "Such severe traffic jams for the last two years means that you have ended our lifeline," he said.



According to the official, it has become immensely difficult for them to bring skilled labour to their industries. The foreign delegates, he said, who usually visit their industries now get stuck in traffic at Malir 15. "With the delay in construction you are also sending back the foreign investment to this city," he pointed out, adding that they have written to the commissioner, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, KMC and the governor, but no heed was paid to their concerns.

Meanwhile, KMC's engineer at the site, Syed Ishrat Rehan, insisted that the construction was not delayed due to them. Pointing out the gridlock and the condition of the road, he said that his team hardly gets four hours to work on the site by the traffic police. "We have no diversion in the area, the roads are so congested and the traffic police are not ready to regulate the traffic," he reasoned, adding that they needed only 15 days to complete the work if they are allowed to work uninterrupted.

KMC's director-general for technical services, Niaz Ahmed Soomro, also put all the blame on the traffic police. He said that after the damage of Link Road's bridge, more traffic moves from Malir Halt to Malir 15, due to which they did not get any space to work on the site.

Meanwhile, traffic police official Muhammad Idrees, who is reader to traffic DIG Amir Ahmed Shaikh, told The Express Tribune that they have urged the KMC staff several times to work on weekends but they didn't. "On one road they have their heavy machinery and they ask us to ply the two-way traffic on the other single road, which is impossible," he said, adding that such heavy traffic moved in the area that they could not allow it to be plied on a single road.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 27^th, 2015.