BRT deadline fatigue

For Karachi's commuters, University Road has become less a development project than an endurance test. The latest assurance from Sindh's Senior Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon is that the road will now be completed within two months. That promise comes barely weeks after his earlier deadline to make the entire artery "100% motorable" by September 15 passed without the promised result. Yet, these two are merely the latest among countless deadlines to have slipped. In January, Mr Memon said the main Red Line corridor along University Road would be completed by March. In June, commuters were told the road would reopen by the end of July. In August came the September commitment. Now, towards the end of September, Karachiites have been handed yet another two-month wait. At some point, repeated deadlines cease to inspire confidence. University Road is one of the city's busiest arteries. Work that drags on here affects a vast section of Karachi and turns an ordinary commute into a daily ordeal and a civic punishment. The government may point to progress on the Red Line and the opening of the Mosamiyat Flyover. That progress is welcome. It does not, however, answer the more important question of why the road itself has remained unfinished for so long despite repeated commitments. The problem is made worse by the enormous public investment involved. The Red Line project has already suffered construction stoppages, contractual difficulties and cost pressures. They point towards weaknesses in execution that deserve scrutiny when citizens have been forced to bear the consequences for years. The government must now ensure that the latest two-month commitment is the last one. The remaining work should be pursued on a clearly defined schedule, with progress made public and responsibility fixed wherever targets are missed.