Uneven development: Next to shining infrastructure, a road in ruins

While other road works have been expedited, Burki Road is hit by delays.

LAHORE:

The area around the Allama Iqbal International Airport has undergone a rapid development process since the new airport was opened. But citizens from less privileged communities feel that this development has favoured the rich and powerful at the cost of the poor, with the latest example being the state of Burki Road.

The government started a project to make Burki Road a dual carriageway up to Burki before the airport section of the Ring Road was started in 2008. The Abdullah Gul Interchange was opened over a year ago, but Burki Road is still in ruins.

Currently, it has been dug up by the Water and Sanitation Agency (Wasa) where it meets the Abdullah Gul Intersection, an area known as Chungi Dogauge [Two Gauge], forcing commuters into long detours. The road has been impassable at this junction for six weeks, and is likely to remain so for another four weeks at least. And the authorities decided at some point to drop the plan to make it a dual carriageway all the way to Burki and make it so only up to the Paragon Society, a private housing scheme which PML-Nawaz leaders have reportedly invested in.

When an underpass was needed to smooth traffic on Amjad Chaudhry Road towards Mahfooz Shaheed Garrison, it was built on an urgent basis in less than a year. While it was being built, work on the already started Burki Road project was halted.

It is instructive to look at who uses these roads. The Ring Road to the airport is useful for the rich residents of DHA. The underpass to the Mahfooz Shaheed Garrison is convenient for the army. Burki Road is the main artery for travellers to and from the City Railway Station serving low income areas and villages around DHA.

During Nawaz Sharif’s last term as prime minister, the government began converting Burki Road into a dual carriageway from Dubai Chowk to near the Rangers Headquarters. The work was completed under the Musharraf government, but drainage problems later caused flooding in sections and damaged the road. In late 2007, the government started a plan to carpet the road and make it a dual carriageway up to Burki.

Apart from residents, businesses are also suffering. Muhammad Ikram, who owns a restaurant in the area, said fewer customers had been coming in as the condition of the road had deteriorated over the years. For one, commuters who would pass his restaurant on the road regularly are now using alternative routes. Second, the pervasive dust and dirt from the dug up sites cause hygiene issues. “People think there will be dust in the food,” Ikram said.

Anees Akhtar, a resident of a housing colony on Burki Road, said that when he shifted here with his family, the area was quiet and sparsely populated. “It developed massively after the construction of the new airport terminal. But the facilities here have not kept pace,” he said.

He said though he lived close to the airport, getting there was a hassle because there was no access to the Ring Road from Burki Road.

Rana Tajammul Hussain, the MPA from the area, said that the road would be completed by June. He said that work on Burki Road was stopped due to the construction of the underpass to Mahfooz Garrison. “Wasa is working on sewage and water supplies. It will take another month to complete after which the carpeting of road will begin,” he said.

Hussain said that the road would be carpeted up to Paragon Housing Society. He said he would ask the chief minister to make it a dual carriageway up to Burki, as was the original plan.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 25^th, 2011.