Karachi houses the first multi-storied car parking plaza of Pakistan, which was built about a decade back to solve the chronic traffic jam issue is Saddar area; however, due to the bad governance of bureaucracy, this car parking plaza remains virtually idle while streets in the vicinity are clogged with wrongly parked cars.
Wrong and illegal parking in the area which houses the multi-storied car parking plaza is not only illogical but also exposes the governance capacities of the administration, which despite the passage of about 10 years is still clueless how to make its multi-million parking plaza functional, though it just requires a simple notification to ban parking in the vicinity.
The car parking plaza, which is the biggest car parking plaza of Pakistan, was constructed about a decade ago with the idea to encourage people to utilise this facility by making the Saddar area a no-parking area, but when the building was constructed the implementation of making Saddar a no-parking zone was put on the back burner because of a clash of interests. The traders and market association opposed the idea of banning parking on streets, saying it would result in fewer buyers visiting their shops. The administration accepted their plea and did not declare the area a no-parking zone as per the original plan of CDGK car parking plaza.
This why the costly car parking building is sitting idle while the area continues to get overcrowded due to illegal parking. Residents of the area complain that this spacious parking plaza is now being used for purposes other than vehicle parking. There are complaints that some vested interests are planning to use the space as though it were a warehouse. Dozens of shops, which could fetch rents of millions of rupees for the KMC, are also sitting idle, and now the glass doors of some of these news shops have broken due to a lack of maintenance.
In fact the whole surroundings of this modern building is dirty with gutter water running freely in front of it and filth and garbage strewn everywhere. The gutters in front of the plaza are without cover, posing grave danger for passing traffic. The area is inundated with gutter water, which has been serving as a breeding ground for dengue and malaria mosquitoes. However, civic agencies are least concerned about the issue.
Civil society has demanded of local Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon, and Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) Administrator Saqib Soomro to take notice of the situation and make this flagship project of the KMC functional. The project just needs a stroke of a pen, since all that is needed is a simple notification to declare the Saddar area a no-parking zone, as per the original plan of the CDGK car-parking plaza.