Bid higher: City fails to raise enough money to build parking plaza

Experts believe money would have been better spent at a housing scheme for the poor.

KARACHI:

The city administration has failed to raise enough money from the auction of shops to complete the construction of Shahabuddin Market and Parking Plaza in Saddar.

Being built behind Empress Market in Saddar, the project was designed to ease traffic congestion by providing a multi-storey car parking alongside hundreds of shops and office space in the building.

“We couldn’t auction the shops and offices,” said an apologetic Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) engineer working on the project. “People are not interested. Our seniors feel that the initiative should be taken by the next government.”

The project, worth over Rs1 billion, would have had five floors to park cars and motorcycles, 289 shops on the ground and mezzanine floors, and space for 28 offices on the first floor. All these spots were supposed to be auctioned.

The site was previously occupied by vegetables and fruits vendors but they were temporarily relocated to a market in Lines Area, which is nearly a kilometre away. After the completion of the building, these 176 shops were supposed to be moved back into the basement. So far, 23 per cent of the allocated cost, which comes to around Rs202 million, had been spent on the project.

The project has already faced criticism from experts given that another parking plaza exists just a stone’s throw away. More than Rs650 million of the taxpayer’s money was used to build City District Government Karachi Parking Plaza, which has yet to be utilised.

Town planners and even some of bureaucrats argue that it would be an uphill task for the KMC to sell the project. “Customers want convenience. And the most convenient thing to do is to park the car right in front of a shop,” said a shopkeeper.



The shopkeepers’ association has admitted that they cannot ensure that people park their cars on the upper floors once the building is complete. The Shahabuddin Market Association representatives explained that shoppers avoid markets built in the basement and cramped upper floors of a building. KMC’s Liaquatabad Supermarket, built in 1970s, is a sad reminder of a similar initiative where all the upper floors are vacant.

The situation is worsened by the fact that traders have little concern for hygiene - garbage, vegetable waste and paan stains will soon litter stairs and alleys in the basement and upper floors, repulsing customers.

Karachi Markets Alliance chairperson Ateeq Mir suggested stricter rules and their implementation by the administration to make this project work. “The model of markets in buildings has worked in some instances, such as Tariq Road, where customers don’t mind going to even the fourth floor. But I am not sure if that would work in Saddar. There will be too many obstacles, such as garbage and stock everywhere.”

Muhammad Azam, another trader, said that women would not want to go in narrow corridors. “We were better off running the business in the open market.”

Meanwhile, experts believed that the KMC is pushing for glamorous projects without any cost-benefit analysis, given the absence of elected local representatives who can debate their usefulness. According to low-cost housing expert Tasneem Ahmed Siddiqui the money being spent on Shahabuddin Market would be enough to provide two-room houses for 2,500 families on the outskirts of the city.

“There is no public consultation when it comes to spending taxpayer’s money. Few officials call the shots,” he said. “We need to set our priorities. We need to ask ourselves if we want parking plazas, flyovers or homes for the poor.”

Published in The Express Tribune, February 27^th, 2013.