Road to disaster?        By Munazza Siddiqi

Much has been written about the Lyari Expressway but confusion about the project still exists. Munazza Siddiqi presents a guide to understanding the various complications around the Expressway.

The problem with the rat race is that even if you win you'll still be a rat. That is precisely what is wrong with most of the mega projects that have been undertaken by our governments in the name of development. In a bid to enter the rat race, our planners have undertaken impressive and glamourous projects, while completely ignoring the viabilities, ground realities and long-term effects of their ventures, thus ending up in a rat hole. The Lyari Expressway (LEW) is no exception. In order to be rated as a developing country, taking on huge projects is not enough; they have to be successful too. It's a project's planning and its equation with the city and how the affectees are dealt with that determine its outcome.

What is amazing is that even though the LEW fails to meet all the prerequisites of a successful project, including logic, no one Imet is against it in principle. However the residents of Lyari belt, town planners and concerned citizens are disturbed by the callous, ill-planned and sneaky manner in which the government is going ahead with it, to the extent that it has even failed to satisfactorily answer some basic questions regarding the Expressway.

In order to ease the port-related traffic pressure from the city, the 1975 Karachi Master Plan proposed a Northern Bypass (NBP) and a Southern Bypass, both skirting the city to join the Super Highway and the National Highway respectively. While the government has completely forgotten the Southern Bypass, it is so excited over the port-Super Highway connection that it wants to build not one but two roads for the related heavy-vehicle traffic the Northern Bypass and an elevated LEW going through the Lyari corridor.

Interestingly, both these roads will start almost from the same point, and while the NBP will skirt around the city to meet the Super Highway beyond the toll plaza, the LEW will go right through Karachi and join the Super Highway at Sohrab Goth, further densifying it. The questions that arise are Can we afford an expensive alternative that would cost us more than 5 billion rupees? Not yet. Do we need two roads right away that serve the same purpose? The answer again is no. Is it worth having one? May be, but only for a chosen few.

The Southern Bypass project will probably never take off, as the government can hardly be expected to take on the rich and the mighty of the Defence and Clifton areas. Besides, most of the influential government officials themselves live in these areas. One can understand this hitch. However, what one cannot understand is why the government is bent upon building both the NBP and the LEW at almost the same time. In fact, there seems to be more enthusiasm for the Expressway. Now, between the NBP and the LEW, it would be logical if the government went ahead with the NBP project 'first' because, unlike the LEW, it's on the peripheries of the city with no agitations, controversies and litigations surrounding it.

The idea of the LEW is no doubt very noble. No one is disputing that. People on both banks of the Lyari river agree with the concept; it's only the mysterious manner in which the government is going about it that's creating genuine concern among the affectees. One mystery that shrouds this Expressway is that of rehabilitation. In spite of the fact that the planning stage is yet to be finalized, bulldozing of the required land has already started taking place. The people of the Lyari belt who are being dislocated to make room for the Expressway have not been taken into confidence. The dislocation-rehabilitation plans are being constantly revised in favour of what these people term as 'favourites', thus questioning the transparency of this project.

Fahim Zaman Khan, a proponent of the LEW, in one of his recent columns says "...millions of lives and property worth billions of rupees may be at risk in the catchment area and the adjoining urban areas of the Lyari river, which constitutes major storm water drain for the city of Karachi. To save the lives and property of people living in this treacherous zone, they should be immediately relocated." What he doesn't talk about is rehabilitation. While it is understood that all those living below the flood line should be removed, but if they are going to be relocated by the building of the Expressway then the rehabilitation of the affectees should be an integral part of the project.

Sadly enough, the government fails to understand that in such projects, which have the potential to cause unlimited human misery, rehabilitation comes before the commencement of the project, not afterwards. You can't throw a man out on the streets and expect him to fend for himself while the government officials decide in their own time where and when to rehabilitate him. It can be argued that this is not development but a vandalism of the worst order. People are roaming the city with slips of paper, which the authorities have issued, for alternative land allotment. These slips just say that so and so will get a plot in Hawkesbay or Baldia. No plot number, nothing. The government has not even started demarcating the land where it plans to rehabilitate these people, let aloneproviding them with civic amenities like road, water and electricity.

The present choices offered are only likely to add to the sufferings of the evicted. According to a high government official, who prefers not to be named, the Hawkesbay land is disputed and even though people have been issued allotment slips, no one will get an inch till the matter is resolved. Qaisar Town land has not yet been fully transferred from the Board of Revenue. The other options include Surjani Town, most of which has already been encroached leaving a mere 20-25 acres.

According to government estimates, around 12,000 houses and 1000 work places will be demolished to make room for the Expressway. Although various community surveys and studies indicate these numbers to be three times as high, to accommodate even the government figures requires about 600-700 acres of land. The Karachi Development Authority (KDA) is noted for many things, but efficiency is not one of them. It would be foolish to expect it to develop this much land and related infrastructure in six months time.

In the mean time where will the evictees go? When asked this, a senior officer of the National Highway Authority (NHA) said that someone had to make the sacrifice. The people living on the Lyari belt are poor and disadvantaged, who can only afford to build a home once. Even if by some miracle these people do eventually get the promised land, they'll have to startlife all over again, that too on the peripheries of the city with no economic means of survival. As far as financial compensation is concerned, the government says it's going to pay50,000 rupees per dwelling, whereas the average cost of a 120 sq-yds house on the Lyari front is 500,000 rupees. And the monetary relief is only for the residences, not for commercial units. A senior official of the city administration says that the 1975 Land Act has no compensation provision for illegal commercial units; only illegal residential units have to be compensated in case of dislocation. Most of the workshops and shops that are being bulldozed have residences on the first floors, but they are being considered as commercial units and not being offered any kind of relief.

The problems faced by the owners and workers of the factories, workshops and shops is another story. The land to be reclaimed for the Expressway would be 860 feet at the Shershah end and would narrow down to only 460 feet at its culminating point at the violence-prone Sohrab Goth. The excess land that is being reclaimed at Shershah is going to badly damage the businesses there.

In this age of recession and the post-9/11 setback, these are the people who are keeping the industry alive by generating economic activity and paying the government bills in the form of huge taxes. During the tax surveys, Shershah was the first and the only area to submit 97 per cent of tax returns. Yet, they are the ones who are being victimized. They have been on this land for decades, legally. The businessmen and factory owners believe that their property is being reclaimed to the benefit of the developers and builders' mafia. This business class comprises peaceful citizens, which is why they say the government is being able to bulldoze its way into acquiring excess land at their end. The communities near the Sohrab Goth end have strong political affiliations, so no one is daring to touch their land.

In this regard, the government is making no distinction between the legal (leased) and illegal occupants. This is not only against the law of the State but also in violation of international treaties to which Pakistan is a signatory, like the 1996 Second United Nations Conference on Human Settlement (Habitat II), which requires the signatories to ensure that no person is made homeless and unproductive without equal/adequate compensation and shelter.

The proponents of the LEW have tried to justify its immediate construction with a lot of figures and numbers. All this jargon works very well in an air conditioned room with the aim of selling the idea. But the fact that most of the time these same numbers refuse to add up in reality reflects upon ignored correlation between the project and its environment, lack of planning and vested interests. After all, the proponents of 'hollow' development are never the ones who have to rough it out under the open sky.

To judge whether a project is of any worth or not, its long-term impact assessment has to be carried out; urban planners and concerned citizens fear that if the LEW is built before the NBP, it's going to turn into an ugly white elephant in the midst of an extremely dense (the density level is already 1,500 persons per acre) and poor slum with high rise buildings on its banks. The government assures that all the excess land would be converted into parks and not plazas. Without the proper shifting of the informal yet economically viable industry (mostly on leased land) that currently exists on either side of the river, who would ever consider sitting in a park with metal being beaten on one side and bones being sorted out on the other.

The localities on both banks of the river at the Mauripur end mostly comprises godowns that are already groaning due to shortage of space. Naturally, where there are godowns there'll be transport (loading and unloading). With the Expressway almost at their doorsteps the amount of transport related activity, already bursting at its seams, is going to spill over on the parks and on the fringes of the LEW. It has been decided that there is going to be a toll on this Expressway. That means light vehicles will not ply on it, which leaves only the heavy ones. Two foreseeable difficulties are likely to arise out of this one, within no time the service infrastructure for these heavy vehicles like workshops, tea and food etc, will spurt out on the side roads; two, the environmental and health degradation that will occur from pollution will cost the city millions.

So, the sensible way out of this controversy is for the government to first build the Northern Bypass and give it a little cooling off period so that concerned business activities and godowns can be shifted near the bypass in a planned manner. Even if this is not done the market forces are always stronger than government plans and strategies. The businesses like that of the Dhan Mandi will automatically shift there because of easy access to transportation facilities. That would ease off a lot of pressure from the Lyari corridor, making it easier for the government to then replan the Lyari Expressway according to the changed scenario. The government should not look at the LEW in isolation, rather in conformity with its environs. As quoted in various newspapers, if the LEW is to be a gift from the federal government to the people of Karachi then it should be built with the spirit of consultation and compassion, not forced down their throats. (Dawn Review 14/3/02)

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A visit to the site on
JULY 11 2002

Expressway devastation

A letter to editor published in daily Dawn. on 11 July 2002

  Along with some friends who are helping out the affected families, I visited the areas that have been demolished along the Lyari River to make room for the Expressway.

  I visited the site and was appalled at the devastation. No infrastructure project, however  wonderful, can justify this barbarism carried out by our government with the help of the army and rangers. Over 200,000 people will be made homeless and jobless, and ancient settlements, such as the Hasan Auliya Village, will also be affected.

Weeping people showed us leased documents, electricity and water bills and begged for protection. The scene reminded me of TV coverage of the Jenin refugee camp but here the devastator is not an occupying power but our own government. I wonder if this devastation could have been possible on such a big scale if we had an elected government.

 From your columns it is obvious that Expressway is a controversial project. Even if it were not why does the government not first learn to look after and  use properly the existing  infrastructures?

 There are traffic problems because traffic is not managed, the roads are all  broken and cannot be used for more than half their width, there are no  footpaths, no bus stops, the circular railway track lies unused. The list is  endless and we build an expressway that is duplicating the Northern Bypass!

So much for common sense. May be after the Lyari Expressway is damaged due to non-maintenance, we will abandon it to build its alternative thus continuing to make the corrupt rich, adding to their numbers and  impoverishing our people.

From

  NOOR JEHAN FAROOQUI                  Karachi