Money well spent?: Rs1,333 million is the estimated cost incurred by KMC to construct the Jail Chowrangi flyover.
PHOTO: FILE
The project was initiated during the tenure of former City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal but could not be completed within the given timeframe due to internal rifts between the city administration and the provincial government. The flyover is being built at a cost of Rs1,333 million which was provided to the KMC by the provincial government.
Meanwhile, residents and commuters have been the ultimate sufferers with frequent accidents, noise pollution and traffic jams having made their lives miserable. The traffic jams have also adversely affected the routine businesses operating on the main road that connects Shaheed Millat Road to PIB Colony, complained a resident, Asif Ali Khan.
“Despite several attempts by the authorities to restart the project, it is yet to be completed due to inexplicable reasons,” he lamented.
Abdul Hameed, 40, a resident of an apartment block adjacent to the flyover, was of the opinion that it was important to complete the bridge as soon as possible as it was one of the busiest thoroughfares in the city. “I don’t know why the jail administration was reluctant to grant permission to complete the bridge as it does not present any security risks.”
Muhammad Ali, who owns a workshop near the site, told The Express Tribune that when the project was initiated, they had expected their businesses to flourish as there would be more parking spaces under the bridge. He lamented, however, that because the project had not been completed on time, the workshops and small businesses operating in the area had been adversely affected.
Meanwhile, sources in the KMC told The Express Tribune that the provincial government had held back the grant for new apartments for jail employees, which were meant to be relocated. Moreover, the prisons IG office had also rejected the proposal to relocate the office.
Presiding over a meeting to review the construction work on Friday, the KMC administrator, Saqib Ahmed Soomro, reported that nearly 80 per cent of the work had been completed and that the flyover would be open for traffic as soon as the IG office was shifted. “The KMC, under agreement with the jail administration, has already completed the construction work on the IG office, the IG residence and 96 flats for jail employees at a cost of Rs190 million,” revealed the administrator.
He added that the completion of this project will ease the flow of traffic from Shaheed-e-Millat, University and New MA Jinnah roads. Accepting that incomplete construction is a hassle to residents, Soomro said that people should wait for the project to complete and then benefit from it in the long run.
Published in The Express Tribune, September 24th, 2013.
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