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Lawari
Tunnel and beyond
-letter
During the year 2009, Lawari Tunnel was perhaps the most
debated topic on the Chitral News. Spearheaded by the Chitral
News Editor, political leaders of different stripes in Chitral
successfully lobbied to modify the tunnel’s original plan; changing it
from a rail passage to a vehicular road. The solidarity behind a common
cause demonstrated by leaders of different political persuasions was
remarkable and proved to be effective. It was also reassuring to observe
that these leaders also demonstrated unity in impressing upon the
provincial government to keep the unfinished tunnel open for an hour or
two every day for the vehicular traffic during the winter months when
the Lawari Pass is closed. This is a glaring example as to how difficult
issues can be resolved in working together despite differences of
opinions and political or other forms of persuasions. It is now time to
think through the long term opportunities that opening up of the tunnel
will create and challenges it will pose in the years to come.
It is now official that the Lawari Tunnel is part of the larger
infrastructure development program to link Pakistan’s commercial centers
with those of the Central Asian countries through a trade road. In other
words, this tunnel is the start of the highway that will be connected
with the old Silk Road network that is being reconstructed through
building modern highways in Central Asia. The Durah Highway, as it
stands now, will link Chitral with all the major towns, historical
cities and commercial centers of Central Asia. Travelers and merchandise
cargo from Chitral can reach many major towns and cities of Badakhshan,
both of Afghanistan and Tajikistan, within hours. It will take as much
time to reach towns such as Zebak, Ishkashum, Barak, Faizabad, Jorm,
Khorog and many others as those far flung areas within Chitral or towns
in its adjacent districts in the south and west. Traveling to Dushanbe,
the capital city of Tajikistan, will take less time than traveling to
Karachi. Dushanbe is a point from where major highways leading to the
Central Asian cities of historical, cultural and commercial significance
are accessed. Cities like Balkh, Bukhara, Samarqand, Tashkent, Osh,
Bishkek, Almaty to name a few are all connected through motorways from
Dushanbe. What does this mean in terms of volume of traffic on the Durah
Highway passing through the Lawari Tunnel in ten or twenty years from
now?
Given the economic conditions of Chitral and pre-tunnel road
limitations, one can safely estimate that today only two percent of
Chitral’s population owns vehicles including commercial trucks, pickups
and taxis, government and non-government institutional automobiles and a
small number of jeeps and cars for private or family use. Given the
current Chitral population of 325,000, there can be 6500 vehicle
currently owned by Chitralis and with addition of those coming from
outside Chitral, the total may well exceed 10,000. Twenty years from now
when the Dorah Highway is connected with the main highways in Central
Asia and with the job opportunities that the construction of the highway
will generate, it is realistic to estimate that there will be at least
five percent increase in the volume of vehicle ownership among
Chitralis. An equal percentage of traffic increase passing through
Chitral, both from south and north, is also a real possibility. What
this means is that there will be minimum 32,500 vehicles of all purposes
will be running daily on the Durah Highway within Chitral territory. In
twenty five years from now, the Durah Highway will be as busy as KKH,
perhaps busier considering the proximity of the major cities of Central
Asia to Chitral and shorter distance than any other rout to Pakistani
cities.
There can be little doubt that the Durah Highway will open enormous
commercial opportunities all along its length. Commercial activities
will not wait until the road is complete. With opening of the Lawari
Tunnel, commercial activities will be intensified within Chitral in the
next few years and the Durah Highway construction will accelerate that
process because of unhindered movement of people and commercial goods.
How the local people take advantage of the opportunities will depend on
their ability to unravel their certain attitudinal bondages. What this
means is that certain types of jobs are considered to be below the
dignity of the Chitralis and are left for outsiders to take those jobs.
An observation of mine during my recent visit to Chitral illustrates
this. While passing by an under construction building in Booni, upper
Chitral, I observed a group of individuals working as construction
workers and no Chitrali was among them. I asked the person who was
accompanying me about those people. I was told that the construction
workers were all teachers who had come to Chitral from down country
during summer holidays in search of work and had taken the contract of
constructing the building before returning to their school duties. One
could safely assume that each of these workers would have added a few
thousand rupees to their family income. Further discussion on this is
for another time. The local people were seen in large numbers either
sitting idle or wandering in the Booni Bazar to return home in the
evening empty handed.
Returning to the future challenges of traffic congestion let me focus
now on the Lawari Tunnel itself. When I stood in front of the tunnel and
reflected, what worried me the most is returning to the same old
situation of getting stranded in time of emergency either side of the
tunnel. The greatest blessing of this tunnel, as I believe, is that it
provides a sense of certainty and freedom; both are critically linked
with human dignity and sense of security. It is hoped that the passage
through the tunnel will ensure that people can leave Chitral or enter it
in times of emergency such as sickness or accident, date for court
appearance, job interview, wedding or death in the family or attending
religious festivals without being stranded and feeling helpless and
despondent. They can plan their travel as they wish without further
anguish. I have seen during my student life traveling from Karachi to
Chitral, the demeaning experience of Chitralis begging the travel agency
staff or those of PIA for tickets as if they were begging for free of
charge tickets. I observed many times that army personnel, district
bureaucrats, politicians, and socially influential persons being sent to
the departure launch while common Chitrali folks being ignored standing
in front of the check-in counter till it is closed and then leaving with
gloomy faces to return the next morning to face the same humiliation.
Without proper system in place, this kind of situation, in my analysis,
will repeat itself.
The tunnel is over 8 kilometers long and accidents and stalling of
vehicles inside it cannot be ruled out. If it was a rail passage, the
only risk was power failure. But in vehicular traffic risks of accidents
causing fire and smoke and traffic jam are a real possibility. In a
worst scenario, let us say a cargo truck gets stalled in the middle of
the tunnel or a car accident causes fire setting vehicles ablaze. What
would be the mechanism to evacuate people, particularly those injured
who need immediate medical attention? How to release the stranded
traffic? How would the emergency services reach the spot? There is a
huge risk of loss of human life involved in such a scenario. On a minor
scale, it is also possible to encounter the old frustrating experience
as referred to above. With enormous increase in the volume of traffic
with all kinds of vehicles on both sides of the tunnel might lead to
regulate the traffic movement. Given the traffic culture in the country,
this would lead to a situation where instead of “first arrive first go”
the norm would be “who should go first”. The ethic of traffic regulation
at the tunnel would be “sahib ko pehley janedo” those who are
influential because of their social and political status or bureaucratic
and military positions will get priority and common people will be at
the mercy of the traffic regulators waiting endlessly.
It is high time that the political and civil society leadership in
Chitral takes stock of these prospective challenges associated with the
project and develops proper strategy. Although high level meetings have
been taking place to deal with the current issues, but what is more
important is to do the ground work to develop strategic plan through
local as well as external experts for the high level meetings to result
in informed decisions with long term implications for the benefit of
Chital people. This cannot happen without vigorous discussions, research
and documentation of various opinions and aspirations of a wide variety
of groups – intellectuals, business community, civil society
organizations, government and development agencies and many others.
These stakeholders can be brought together through holding conferences
and seminars and other forums.
Dr Mir Baiz Khan
19 Dec 09
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