KARACHI: Two proposals that could have helped avert the bottlenecks existing in the FTC flyover’s design were discarded for the sake of serving vested interests of a few, utterly disregarding the inconvenience that would be caused to the public in the future.

The FTC flyover or Sheikh Abdul Qadir Jilani flyover as it is now called has two major bottlenecks.

Firstly, the drop point of the ramp that leads from Abbasi Shaheed Road to the Main Shahrae Faisal is perilously close to the main road. It does not have space for commuters arriving on to Shahrae Faisal where they can take time to look before coming on to the main road, and instead they find themselves in a speed zone just after coming off from the ramp. Furthermore, the traffic on way towards the airport side on Shahrae Faisal is also disturbed because of this situation.

The second bottleneck causes great inconvenience to the commuters intending to travel from Shahrae Faisal to Saddar, while coming from the FTC side.

They have to turn left near the FTC building onto the Abbasi Shaheed Road, travel all the way till signal at the end of the Gora Qabristan near the CSD market, take a U-turn, come all the way back and then reach the ramp that leads to Saddar. This situation becomes more perturbing because the road used for turning left from Shahrae Faisal onto the Abbasi Shaheed Road is usually in a depleted state because of the faulty drainage system of the FTC Building. This constantly keeps rotting away the road at the turning, no matter how many times it is rebuilt.

So why did these bottlenecks not fixed at the time of construction? A well-placed source within the CDGK told Daily Times that these problems had underwent discussions and the matter was conveyed to the high-ups. Two proposals had been placed forward to redress the bottlenecks.

In the case of the first bottleneck at the drop point of the ramp connecting to Shahrae Faisal, the reason it was constructed so close to the main road was that there was a 24 inch diameter water pipeline present at the originally planned location. Therefore the ramp had to be built ahead of the pipeline, resulting it in being very close to the main road.

The option that was available to build it behind the water pipeline was that the city government had to used the space from the land behind the ramp that is currently being used as a parking lot by a company. The CDGK source disclosed that the parking lot space being used by the company is encroached land and that the ‘influence from above’ never allowed that land to be freed to be used for the flyover’s ramp.

To solve the problem of commuters travelling from Shahrae Faisal to Saddar, it was proposed that an underpass be constructed leading from the FTC side of Shahrae Faisal towards the Saddar side. This proposal went as far that a formal inauguration of this proposed underpass by then city nazim Naimutullah Khan took place. The tender for the consultancy services for this project was awarded to Ms Techno International. This project was completely discarded after the new city government took over and was never mentioned again.

The source also disclosed that besides the park that is currently being built in the inner part of the ramp of the flyover, the outer areas surrounding the flyover were also planned to be used as parks, but now they are being used as spaces for billboards.

The CDGK source also said the reinforcement pillars on the side of the flyover connecting with Abassi Shaheed Road were constructed after much argument with the high-ups.

"Without these pillars, the flyover would have been exposed to deterioration making it highly susceptible to heavy damage," the source said.

The source also criticized the quality of construction material used in the flyover saying: "The quality of the material used in the FTC flyover is nothing less than a disgrace."

It is pertinent to mention that one newspaper had also published a report pointing out a geometrical error in the flyover that one its ramp is built too steep.