Karachi: DHA: You call these roads?

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Aisha Masood
Despite several promises made by the Defence Housing Authority (DHA) regarding the carpeting of roads after completion of the new drainage system, several arterial thoroughfares remain in dilapidated condition, causing immense inconvenience to residents and motorists in the area.

Most of the roads left unattended by the authority fall in the busiest areas of the DHA.

The DHA Administrator has been directing the department concerned to complete the carpeting of roads on a priority basis, following which DHA, through press statements, kept claiming that patching work would start shortly after Eid-ul-Fitr.

It has been more than a month since Eid, yet there are no signs of such an effort, even on the major roads such as Khayaban-e-Shamsheer, much to the dismay of DHA residents.

As it stands, the broken and uneven roads make for a driving nightmare. Motorists complain that they cannot drive on the covering of the underground drains, which have been installed in the middle of the roads, because the width of the covering is not enough for a vehicle to be driven on. On the other hand, there is the uncarpeted broken portion of road, which, in any case, is also often not wide enough to be driven on. If these conditions are not difficult enough, complain motorists, there is also the problem that the drain covering and the broken portion of the road are not on the same level.

In an attempt to maneuver through these conditions, motorists are bound to run into some sort of mishap, they add.

The residents of one of the posh areas of the city now say that they do not feel as if they are living in the DHA but in an ‘underprivileged area.’

Many say that the city government has left the DHA behind in the ability to keep roads in proper shape.

The appalling condition of roads is not restricted to areas of DHA where drainage lines have been laid.

DHA Phase-VIII, where a number of schools and colleges are located, is in even worse condition. Many of the roads are not functional and, those which are, have not been marked properly by DHA so as to allow two-way traffic move in an organised manner.

The open uncountable open ditches in phase VIII are no less than death wells, particularly at night since there are no streetlights most of the time, complain motorists, adding that most of the roads in phase VIII, including the one that leads to the schools and colleges, are broken. Moreover, the roads are too narrow to cater to the traffic on that route.

Driving conditions aside, the unfinished roads are a health hazard. Dust storms are routine in the vicinity with heaps of construction material lying around on unfinished roads. Many children travelling to school, especially those in vans, inhale plumes of dust that envelope the area. Parents have expressed concern over the matter saying that their children’s health is at stake in this situation. One parent at school complained that her child has been recently diagnosed with asthma.

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