Road Network of Umarkot City

The city of Umarkot, located in the southeastern part of our country, inherits rich history, tradition, and culture. The town was named after the ancient fort built by Rana Amar Singh; but later on, the fort also attained popularity due to the folklore of Umar and Marvi. The city is also the birthplace of Mughal emperor Jalaluddin Akbar, who was born on 14th October 1542, when his father Humayun retreated and sought refuge from Rana Prasad Singh who was the then ruler of the city.
The splendorous history and outlook of the city have become a past now. The present state of the city is very murky, muddy, and dusty. The conditions of the tertiary streets in the city are pathetic and they are not maintained in accordance with public health guidelines. Extremely patchy and broken streets with sewerage overflow make the situation even grimmer for the residents of the city. In the absence of mosquito fumigation, the health conditions of the city become very hazardous in normal as well as in the rainy season. Thousands of the city residents fall prey to the mosquito-born diseases, especially malaria and dengue infections. While surveying the tertiary streets, no notable development work was seen on them.
The recent allocation of development budget in the district assembly for the district of a population of over 1 million was about PKR 320+ million. The current development budget of Umarkot town committee is also expected to be around PKR 220 million or so (not allocated yet).
The secondary streets connecting two neighbors and markets are also not in good condition. However, some of the secondary streets were repaired recently, but the quality of the work and the desirable effect on the lives of residents was not that impressive. A few of those streets include Marvi market to Thar Bazaar street, Marvi market to Shahi Bazaar street, Khaskheli Muhla street, Old Court street, and others. Despite these dismal conditions, the development work on the secondary streets was better during the past three and a half years as compared to the previous 5 to 10 years, when no local government existed. Before, the present government, the state of city development projects was even in a worse condition.
However, if we inspect the past as well as the present projects from the engineering perspectives, you will find no project that has been completed in accordance with the required specifications and quality benchmarks.
The conditions of the primary streets connecting different parts of the city are not very different from the secondary and the tertiary streets. The road connecting the Jogi colony is in a very bad condition. Many broken road patches and waterlogged holes are extensively seen on the road. The overflow of the sewerage system and leakage of water supply pipes make the conditions even worse. Another primary road connecting the city with the Vehro suburb is in somewhat better condition due to the recent repairing work. But the quality of the work is again questionable.
As far as the connectivity of Umarkot city with the other surrounding cities and towns is concerned, it is connected through national highway and provincial roads. The city is connected to Mirpurkhas through the national highway road, which was recently handed over to the national highway authority NHA. The work on this carpeted road has started from Mirpurkhas side. The present condition of the road from Umarkot to Mirpurkhas is not good enough. It requires more than an hour to drive from Umarkot to Mirpurkhas, which is just 75 km away.
The Kunri-Umarkot road has recently been completed. It is one of the finest roads Umarkot has ever got. This is a carpeted road. The newly constructed road has reduced the traveling time from Umarkot to Kunri significantly. The distance of this road is about 35 km.
Another very important road that connects Umarkot with Mithi and Chachro is in very bad conditions. The volume of traffic has risen on this road due to Thar coal mine projects and other industrial activities in the area. Owing to the abrupt mounds and depressions on the contour of the desert, there are so many curves, elevations, and depressions, which cause serious accidents. The width of the road is very narrow and the wild winds deposit thick layers of sand on the road, which even reduces the width of the road. A wider road is highly needed to reduce accidents, and traveling time to Chachro, Mithi and beyond.
The Umarkot-Chore road is much better, but we cannot say it is satisfactory. The Chore Cantt is also connected through this road that makes it a very critical road. So, it should be constructed properly owing to the criticality of the road relating to the country’s defense.n