The Sindh government’s plan to turn Boat Basin into a traffic-free food street has raised concerns with architects and environmentalists in the city.
According to SAMAA Digital, this plan has been added to the World Bank Karachi Neighbourhood Improvement Project loans. The project does not need an Environmental Impact Assessment or Initial Environmental Examination as it is only a rehabilitation plan, a member of KNIP was quoted as saying.
The KNIP has already submitted the environmental and social plan to the Sindh Environmental Protection Agency and it is expected that a no-objection certificate will be granted to it. Architects in the city, however, believe that the idea to turn the side street along Neher-i-Khayyam into the visitors’ parking with a valet system will not be feasible.
SAMAA Digital quoted Marvi Mazhar, an architect and conservationist as saying that the project seems to be an organizational infrastructural development plan if they are relocating the parking. She further said that the core issue of KNIP is of rectifying the city’s infrastructure and not beautification of the city. She also brought up the failure of a similar plan which was recently implemented at Burns Road to no good effect.
The president of the Boat Basin shop owners association, Naeem Sajjad told SAMAA Digital that the government discussed the plan with them and they had, in turn, given some recommendations to the KNIP board. “They need to open a food street from the KFC side, so that visitors enter the food street and park along the footpath,” he was quoted as saying.
