Rebuild Karachi initiative demands mass transit system for Karachi

KARACHI, March 26 (SABAH): Under its “Rebuild Karachi” initiative, Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi on Saturday took stakeholders of the city’s transport sector onboard at a conference entitled ‘The past and the future of Karachi’s transport’.

The moot was held at a local institute and was presided over by JI Karachi deputy chief Osama Razi. Karachi Transport Ittehad Chairman Irshad Bukhari, Dr. Tahir Soomro and others expressed their views at the discussion.

Osama Razi, while speaking on the occasion, said the prevailing ruling regime in the province didn’t have capability to resolve the prolonged issues being faced by the masses.

He said that the megalopolis has become a city of problems and the gravity of these issues demands a public service centric model of politics in Karachi.

He urged the masses to take part in collective efforts to resolve the issues or at least play their due role by highlighting them.

Irshad Bukhari said that in the year 2010, some 20 to 22 thousands busses, coaches and minibuses were running on the roads of Karachi but now the situation has become much more worsened.

He added that the only way forward for the transport sector in Karachi was public private partnership. Investors and the public sectors will have to come forward for any progress and betterment in the transport sector of Karachi.

Bukhari recalled that a driving school in Karachi used to issue permit for bus driving after a month long training. The MQM played a significant role in ruining the transport in the city.

Dr. Tahir Soomro said that the city was facing a massive issue of traffic because the past governments ignored the mass transit project introduced by Late Nematullah Khan, the former mayor of Karachi. Even today, he said a mass transit system was the only issue to resolve the transport issues in Karachi. The entire city had to be interlinked through six corridors under the mass transit project, he added.

Kazim Mansoor said Karachi has been the seventh largest city of the world. Big cities even in Ethiopia and African countries enjoy mass transit system, he said adding that on the other hand Karachi was deprived of it because nor the federal, neither the provincial government owns it.