WE all carry crosses around our necks, burdens difficult to bear. If the Clifton Cross, a ‘development’ which we in Karachi now traumatically witness, is not be a cross around the necks of this city’s citizens for ever and ever, a miracle is needed.

The Clifton intersection, midway between the Teen Talwar roundabout and the Do Talwar roundabout, where the main Clifton Road intersects with Khayaban-e-Roomi and Khayaban-e-Jami running between Mai Kolachi Chowk and Submarine Chowk, which is known as Schon Circle, is in the throes of a major upheaval.

To enable the traffic to move and cross over smoothly without interrupting the flow of traffic (traffic lights), a traffic ‘clover’ was envisaged. What combined intelligence and mass thought process finally settled on was a through-road crossing over an underpass. The plan was approved by the various uninitiated ‘experts’ who run this city.

The city government stated it had no funds, so the brilliant powers that govern Karachi ordered that the rich and well-endowed Karachi Port Trust, which operates one of the most expensive ports in this region and has money to spare, cough up funds to be spent on an area which KPT neither owns nor controls. (True to form, not one trustee in whose trust KPT funds rest, objected or even suggested that the money be loaned to the city government and shown as an amount due until repaid or ordered to be written off.) So, the KPT has assumed full responsibility for making and developing the cross.

The man in charge is Engineer Brigadier Jamshed Zaidi, a most amiable individual, the project designers are Nespak, the head project man being Engineer Ashraf Dangra, and the work has been contracted out to the Army’s Frontier Works Organization. Capable Engineer Major Sarfaraz Rao is the FWO man in charge of the project, and the executive engineer, Lt Colonel Akhtar Zaman can be found working at the site up to 2300 hours each day.

The FWO men say they can complete the work within a period of four months provided they are given due cooperation by the authorities who control the disconnection and relocation of utilities and services, that is water, sewage, electricity, gas, telephones, cable TV, and whatever else. The authority controlling and coordinating this manoeuvre is the KPT which in fact exercises no control over those in charge of the utilities and services.

Needless to say, the approved design of the Clifton Cross is faulty. No vehicular traffic wishing to turn right from any of the four roads will be able to flow directly and uninterruptedly. It will have to turn left, traverse a distance and then make a U turn. The flow will not be smooth. And pedestrians will be unable to cross the roads from one side to another. As things stand, the project will take over a year to complete, and the survivors will then have to grin and bear the Clifton Cross for an unforeseeable future.

On to a new-old subject, that of billboards, the core issue of my column last Sunday. There is case law, and a judgment in favour of the people stands.

In 2002, the Clifton and Defence Traders Welfare Association filed a suit in the High Court of Sindh against the President of the Clifton Cantonment Board (CCB) and four others (Suit No.1109/02, PLD 2003 Karachi 495). It was decided in February 2003 when Justice Mushir Alam handed down his order.

The Association sought restraining action against the defendants “from erecting/allotting, letting out any site/space to any person for the display/view of the sign boards advertisement hoardings on the pavements or any other place at the Schon Circle or on the side lanes and further restraining orders are sought against the defendants from awarding any new contract.”

Certain members of the Association have their offices in Dollawala Centre, at Schon Circle. Up to 2002, placards, hoardings and sign boards were either placed on the rooftop of their building or put up in such a manner as not to block the view of the occupants of the building. However, in October 2002, someone began to erect a “mammoth hoarding” of proportions quite against those allowed by the CCB rules and regulations, right in front of Dollawala Centre blocking the view of the Association members, their light and air.

A licence had wrongly been issued by the CCB to the advertisers allowing them to install a billboard measuring 48 x 12 feet. This was quite contrary to the CCB’s own policy which “provides and fixes the maximum size of the hoarding as 20 x 40 feet.” Not content with this, the advertisers went one better and came up with a billboard measuring an incredible 60 x 20 feet. The CCB did nothing to stop them. It generously acquiesced in the violation of its own rules.

As wrote Justice Alam : “The plaintiff’s grief is against the mushroom growth of billboards of abnormal size in the vicinity. Such unplanned hoardings are indeed sour and not a treat to the eyes, more particularly when such huge hoardings and boards and affixed blocking the view and so also the frontage and elevation of the commercial establishment ... such practice not only causes annoyance and discomfort but also blocks the view of the surroundings, hinders exposure to and from the office on the front side of the road hampering their view overlooking the city, prejudicially affecting enjoyment of their property, impeding business and keeping away the prospective customers/clients.”

The CCB lawyer pleading the case tried to justify the CCB violation by citing other wrongs, “on account of upcoming hoardings in the other parts of the city.” This prompted Justice Alam to state and to order :

“It is indeed anomalous that various civic agencies operate in this cosmopolitan city of Karachi and are all oblivious of the responsibility and duty cast upon them to at least frame and follow a uniform policy in respect of matters of common denomination such as an advertisement policy.” He stated that the defendant could “not be allowed to deviate on such ground against their own policy ... A compromise entered into between the parties cannot be allowed to nullify the policy nor can such compromise be allowed to be enforced if found to be in negation of any provision of law ... If the subject board is allowed to be installed in the manner proposed it will indeed, in my opinion, affect and invade the peaceful enjoyment of the property by the constituent of the plaintiffs.

“Prima facie case and balance of convenience is, therefore, under the facts and circumstances in favour of confirmation of interim orders. Defendants are directed that the proposed hoarding or the advertisement board not more than the size permissible under the Advertisement Policy, 1999, i.e. 20 x 40, may be affixed at such height and in such manner as it may not obstruct the view, vision and elevation of the plaintiffs’ commercial establishment.”

Yesterday came more good news on this public nuisance by way of a news item on page 19 of the Metropolitan section of this newspaper. Justice Zia Pervez of the Sindh High Court has restrained the city government from licensing any more billboards and hoardings pending the hearing of a suit against ‘violative hoardings in the city.’

E-mail: arfc@cyber.net.pk