Karachi’s holey roads

A wise man once said: “When it rains, water comes. And when it rains some more, more water comes.”

What this wise man failed to explain to the over 20 million citizens of Karachi was why each time it rains, Karachi ends up looking like the remnants of Moen Jo Daro (in all honesty, it doesn’t look like Paris at any other time of the year either). Or why they must all tippy-toe around the puddles and craters, lest they fall into one, or worse, get electrocuted.

Take Mohammad Tahir for instance, who drives across Karachi each day to run errands for his employer. Throughout the day, he sticks to the slow lane, never speeding up more than 50 kilometres an hour and keeping an attentive watch for hazards: potholes, craters and large pavement holes. “It is not like I’m not in a hurry, but this is the safest speed for anyone driving on the city’s roads,” he said.

For those who make a living out of navigating Karachi’s expressways, Tahir’s words ring true. Covering every stretch of the road is accompanied by the relentless prospect of an accident or some other situation that demands caution.

A jolt and there goes your vehicle, now stuck in a chuckhole. “Karachi’s roads are full of surprises,” Tahir told Dawn.com. “One wrong turn could land you in deep trouble.”

Like clockwork, this year’s monsoon rains once again took a toll on Karachi’s fragile infrastructure, leaving behind caved or washed away roads and spilling sewage. From DHA to Korangi and Teen Hatti to Sohrab Goth, potholes have rendered major thoroughfares unusable for both motorists and pedestrians, even causing accidents.

These recent showers coupled with neglect from various government departments tasked with road maintenance have left Karachi’s roads and streets resembling the moon’s surface — cratered and pitted.

Even when they are repaired, at taxpayers’ expense or financed through international loans, these roads go back to their previous state in no time. Unfortunately, no one takes responsibility.

Over time, the people of Karachi have resigned themselves to the reality that their roads may never truly heal. The dream of smooth, well-maintained thoroughfares seems distant with every passing day.

Disability and death

Muhammad Usman, 42, lives in Korangi from where he drives to Gulshan-e-Iqbal, where his office is located, every day — a 36-minute journey that could easily extend considering Karachi’s traffic.

“My back pain has gotten severe in recent years, so much so that I have to take a painkiller every day,” he told Dawn.com. Doctors have told Usman that the reason behind the pain is the potholes that he braves on the way to and back from work.

“There are no public buses which run on this route and I can’t leave a well-paying job. If this is the cost I have to pay, so be it,” Usman sighed.

While the 42-year-old has now resorted to painkillers, Karachi’s roads, peppered with potholes and pits have been unforgiving for others, sometimes turning into death traps. Last year, around 500 people, mostly motorcyclists, suffered injuries in road traffic accidents in Karachi daily and were brought to emergency units of different hospitals for treatment.

Many of them face permanent disability, which has altered their lives forever. But then there are some unfortunate motorists, who end up losing their lives.

Sara Iqbal, a young motorcyclist, lost her life last month when her scooter slipped on the city’s uneven Rashid Minhas Road near Jauhar Mor, resulting in a collision with a dump truck due to poor road conditions. The police, commenting on the incident, blamed the dilapidated road infrastructure, which it said not only hampered smooth traffic flow but also caused road accidents.

According to the World Health Organisation, road traffic injuries are the leading cause of death amoned children and young adults aged 5-29 years while approximately 1.3 million people die each year as a result of road traffic crashes.

Tahir, who has been driving on the streets of Karachi since 2005 — sometimes in a truck, other times in a delivery van — was recently diagnosed with carpal tunnel syndrome. It is a condition which involves the compression of the median nerve at the carpal tunnel in the wrist.

“On days when I am on the wheel for a longer period, my hand numbs and I can feel tingling in the thumb, index and middle finger,” he told Dawn.com. “I can’t stop driving though; it is the only thing I can do for a living.”

‘Robbing taxpayers’

For the hundreds of thousands of residents meandering the city’s broken roads, another cost they are forced to bear is that of vehicle repairs.

Azhar Ustad, a mechanic who has been in the field for over 15 years, explained to Dawn.com that uneven and cratered roads loosen the axle, suspensions, tyron bands, lower arm, shock absorber and several other parts of a vehicle.

“Just yesterday I opened up a Suzuki Swift which had been driven 70,000kms … its shocks were severely damaged, even though going by company guidelines, the car would only need maintenance after it has been driven 100,000 miles,” he said.

He highlighted that the cost of repairing these broken parts is in thousands of rupees, adding: “The authorities are just robbing the taxpayers.”

Monna Amin, a teacher who drives her car to and from work six days a week, decried that she spends thousands on vehicular repairs every month. “I travel from Clifton to Garden every day, main thoroughfares like Sharea Faisal are usually smooth but roads in downtown Saddar and Numaish are the worst.

“The potholes are almost never-ending, no matter how careful you are,” she lamented. “We are paying thousands and millions to the government in tax but what are they doing? Where is all this money going?”

Authorities around the year spend billions of rupees almost everywhere to rebuild and rehabilitate these roads. Last week, Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah approved Rs1.5 billion to repair roads within the jurisdiction of the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC). These sums of money were similarly promised both in 2023 and the year before.

But despite this, the question remains: Why do Karachi’s roads keep breaking?

More profits, less work

According to civil engineer Farooq Fazal, the construction of a road involves three key stages. The process begins with compacting the sub-grade layer, which consists of the natural soil present on the land where the road is being built. Soil contains air voids through which water can seep, making it wet.

“It is essential to eliminate these air voids by compacting the soil to its maximum density, typically around 95 per cent,” he explained.

There are different types of soil in an area, each with varying densification properties. To determine the maximum density that a soil can achieve, a laboratory test known as the ‘field density test’ is undertaken. Once this limit is established, the soil is compacted using roller trucks and surface vibrators. The compacted soil should then be re-tested in the laboratory to ensure it has reached its maximum density.

The second layer is the sub-base — a mixture of soil and stone that is again compacted with rollers and vibrators. This layer raises the pavement height, prevents water from rising through capillarity, and allows for proper drainage of any water that enters the pavement.

Lastly, to fill any gaps which may have been left in the sub-base and to give the roads a smooth surface, asphalt combined with bitumen is used for the black-coloured layer of carpeting, also called the surface course. This finely crushed mixture binds the asphalt and forms a structural component of the pavement, providing a smooth, uniform, and rigid surface capable of withstanding the abrasive forces of vehicular traffic.

While these steps are typically followed, roads often deteriorate due to insufficient supervision by authorities, which allows contractors to cut corners.

“Road engineering is an entire profession that is not practised properly in Pakistan,” said Dr Mir Shabbar Ali, dean and professor of the Faculty of Civil Engineering and Architecture at Sir Syed University of Engineering and Technology.

He explained that a trained road engineer would understand the importance of slopes in both cross and longitudinal directions, which would enable rainwater or sewage to drain off the road rather than accumulate on its surface. Prolonged exposure allows water to penetrate the sub-base or sub-grade.

“Compaction can only hold the ground for so long; eventually, water will seep in,” Dr Ali remarked, emphasising that improper compaction exacerbates this issue.

Contractors often open roads to traffic while construction is still under way, relying on vehicles to compact the surface instead of using rollers and vibrators. “These are just cost-cutting measures,” Dr Ali noted. “After paying off all the officials involved and securing their profit margins, little money remains for the actual work.”

In another cost-saving tactic, contractors use more sub-base material and less asphalt, which is the most expensive material in road construction.

The professor highlighted that a core test could easily assess the quality of a road. It involves drilling out a small section of the road and examining it in a laboratory. Engineers evaluate the quality, composition, and durability of the asphalt, providing insights into the strength, density, and thickness of the layers to ensure the road’s structural integrity.

The fundamental issue, however, lies with the government, which issues payments to contractors without supervising the work at each stage. “There is a need for a third-party consultant,” Ali emphasised.

The negligence in hiring consultants or making reports of consultants available for public view has allowed billions of rupees to be spent without accountability.

Potholes will remain potholes

This year’s monsoon wiped away key road links, which were rehabilitated using billions of rupees. The KMC is now preparing to reconstruct 29 of these roads at an estimated cost of Rs2 billion. This would also cover the repair of damaged sewerage lines and the resurfacing of roads.

But why do these roads wash away every time it rains? This was exactly the question Karachi Mayor Murtaza Wahab put to the project director of the Competitive and Liveable City of Karachi (CLICK) — a World Bank-funded project — seeking clarification regarding the performance of consultants hired by them to oversee the repairs of 14 roads during the 2023-2024 financial year. All of these roads had either caved in or developed potholes within a year of their rehabilitation.

After not responding for a month, it emerged on Sep 22 that CLICK had decided to get the roads rebuilt the roads through the same contractors.

After several attempts, Dawn.com managed to secure a meeting with the CLICK Deputy Programme Director Zain ul Abideen and Project Director Asif Jan Siddiqui.

According to Siddiqui, following severe urban flooding in Karachi in 2022, which left the city’s roads in a deplorable condition, the KMC sought assistance from the Sindh government for repairs. However, citing a lack of funds, it redirected them to the CLICK project.

Road repair and maintenance was not originally covered by the World Bank fund, said Siddiqui. Nonetheless, given the dire state of the city’s infrastructure, they decided to use the funds for rehabilitation, ultimately repairing more than 300 roads.

When asked by Dawn.com about the reasons for the roads being washed away and whether there was a sustainability plan in place, Siddiqui cited several factors. Speaking specifically about the Altaf Barelvi Road, which was among the 14 roads listed by Murtaza Wahab, he noted that shortly after it was patched, the contractor informed them that the road had been dug up again to install water lines.

Siddiqui said CLICK had reached out to the Karachi Water and Sewage Board, upon which they had stated that a pipeline replacement was being made. “But you know delays happen and we couldn’t wait any longer as we had to give relief to the people using the road.

“Moreover, we don’t know if the patch was on the same spot that was carpeted or on a different spot,” the project director remarked.

As for the other 13 thoroughfares highlighted by Wahab, Siddiqui said that there were various reasons for the roads being damaged. However, when pressed for a detailed explanation for each of the 14 roads, he said they had the information but had not yet provided it to Dawn.com at the time of this report’s publication.

Discussing the sustainability of the work, Siddiqui admitted that the repairs were never intended to be a long-term solution and were merely a stop-gap measure. Nevertheless, this temporary measure was carried out using billions of rupees, which would eventually be returned to the World Bank using taxpayers’ money.

Siddiqui further explained that before contractors are assigned any project, they are required to submit a performance security, which can be in the form of bank guarantees or letters of credit. This security serves as a guarantee that the contractor will fulfil their duties diligently. In the event of non-compliance, these funds can be used to recover damages or hire another contractor.

For now, this money will be used to rehabilitate the roads that were damaged by the rains in 2024. “We can’t talk about the sustainability of this work, even this time. In a city like Karachi, you cannot predict anything. Only fully reconstructed roads can be questioned about their longevity,” Siddiqui stressed.

“Maintenance and repair work is not a big deal; it happens all over the world,” he added.

This really isn’t just the tale of these 14 roads in Karachi. The city is sliced up into the domain of over a dozen land-owning departments — including the KMC, the seven cantonment boards, Defence Housing Authority, the Karachi Port Trust, Pakistan Railways, etc — each of which is responsible for the provision of municipal services including roadworks within its respective jurisdiction. Sadly, with these many cooks, all that happens is pass-the-buck while the broth burns.

The question here is: will the city’s infrastructure ever be robust enough to withstand the monsoon or will temporary measures continue to be the norm at the expense of long-term solutions?

Guess we have to wait for the next monsoon for these answers.