Baloch Colony flyover to take 2 more weeks

KARACHI: Students going to City School’s PAF Chapter will have to wait two more weeks for the construction to be completed on a new flyover right opposite the campus.

The flyover was supposed to be ready before the school opened Aug 9 after the summer holidays. The deadline was August 1, but, officials now say it is unlikely it will open before Ramazan begins around mid-August.

“If it does not rain, then we can finish it in two days and the flyover would be open for traffic,” said Qamrulain Khan, the general manager of AA Quality Builders, the contractors of the flyover. “We would have completed the construction [by now] if the blueprints had been given to us on time.” He said that they were supposed to get them on November 24 but they were handed over on December 22.

The good news is that the structure is almost complete and the only carpeting is left for the four-lane flyover.

The Shaheed-e-Millat Expressway, the road where the flyover is being constructed, is one of the main arteries of the city, connecting Qayuumabad and Defence Housing Authority (DHA) with PECHS and Bahadarabad. This area would get gridlocked with traffic jams each day in the morning, when school was out and later at rush hour as it was one of the four main approaches to the DHA and Korangi side of the city from Shahrae Faisal.

Officials at the CDGK’s work and services department also said that it would take at least two more weeks for the bridge to be ready because the surface of the flyover is waterlogged from the rain. “It will most likely be inaugurated on August 14,” said one official.

Two weeks is not necessarily a long time to wait, said EDO Works and Services Rashid Mughal. “Earlier on, bridges used to take two to three years. We should be appreciated for taking six months to complete the bridge,” he said.

The project was inaugurated by the Sindh government and CDGK in October last year. The estimated cost is Rs395.5 million. Seventy-five per cent of the cost is being borne by the Sindh government and 25 per cent by the CDGK.

The flyover, which is 215 metres long and 15.2 metres wide, was initially supposed to be completed in four months. But since work started 10 months ago, people say business has come to a standstill. The Shaheed-e-Millat Expressway is surrounded by hardware and auto parts shops. “My business relies on the movement of vehicles passing in front of my shop,” said Humayun Munir, who runs an auto parts shop situated near the flyover. “Around 80 per cent of my business has been affected as people choose not to take this route because of the construction.”

According to him, all the heavy traffic coming from Korangi Industrial Area via Malir River has to pass through the old route under the flyover. “The movement of big trailers, tankers and trucks is the main reason for the traffic jams, but unfortunately, there is no diversion to link the road with the flyover.”

The only reason why they’re building this flyover is to give VIPs a “smooth drive” to Clifton and DHA, he complained.

Another shopkeeper, Tanveer, said that eight shops had been forced to close down in the meantime.

Meanwhile, SI Mohammed Yousuf, a traffic official posted at the Shaheed-e-Millat intersection near City School, said he had a lot of trouble controlling the “mess” every day. He hoped that the flyover would make a difference.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 31^st, 2010.