‘Quality ignored in WB-funded road carpeting project’

Local residents demand of Sindh government to hold contractor accountable

KARACHI:

The authorities have finally woken up to a dilapidated road adjacent to North Karachi Gymkhana after 10 years, but they are only carpeting it instead of laying it all over again. The roads carpeting is being undertaken by the Sindh government under the project "CLICK" to make Karachi a livable city with the financial support of World Bank.

Local residents say that construction standards are being blatantly violated in carpeting as the quantity of tarcoal, sand, and gravel used is below standard. Despite the fact that the drainage system between from Saifi College to Hyderi on Hashim Zaidi Road is in a very bad condition, the authorities are not fixing it, according to the residents.

They say that without fixing the drainage system first, the road carpeting would be just waste of money. They further say that the walls of the rainwater drain had collapsed long ago due to which traffic accidents frequently happen on the road.

They claim that the road carpeting was done in a haphazard manner as sixty percent of the road has been left scrubbed. They say that it is important to first fix the drainage system by rebuilding its walls before undertaking the road carpeting.

The residents say that the violation of standards and the use of substandard materials in the World Bank-financed carpeting will only pile up the debt burden on the future generations of Pakistan because the road would soon get destroyed again.

They demanded of the Sindh government to hold the contractor accountable.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 23^rd, 2023.