When the British came to Sindh, it
soon became apparent to them that the Indus
was little used for commercial purposes other than local grain traffic. They
noted that earlier regimes had taxed river traffic, thereby discouraging it, so
on 13 March 1843 the Governor-General announced by proclamation that all
transit duties were to be abolished in any part of Sindh which was, or might
be, occupied by the British Army, thereby opening the Indus to free movement.
This did not, however, achieve the required result. There was no rush of boats
on the river. Navigation was uncertain in
the summer the river flooded, and in the winter it was liable to go down so
rapidly that steamers could be grounded. Even after the conquest of the Punjab, the hope that, through private
enterprise, river steamers would ply the Indus even more abundantly than boats
on the Ganges, was disappointed. The Government
endeavored
by its own flotilla to establish regular communication by steamer between the
sea and the rivers of the Punjab, but even
that made little difference. It was therefore ultimately concluded that rapid
and efficient communication could only be achieved with the completion of a
railway line in the region.
Sir Bartle Frere started
various schemes for the improvement of communications in Sindh, building roads,
series (inns), and bridges, improving
the harbor
of Karachi, and putting steamboats on
the Indus. During 1851, some 126 miles of road
were laid at a cost Of Rs 18,525, and by 1852, 207 miles had been completed at a
cost of Rs 28,298. In Upper
Sindh, between 1847 and 1859-60, 2,589 miles of road were made and
786 masonry bridges built. (Most of the roads were not metal
led,
merely leveled and cleared of trees and bushes.) In
1883, the Karachi Harbor Works, commenced in 1850,
were at last completed. By the early 1850s it was becoming clear that
the Indus route to the Punjab was not proving
as successful as expected. In 1862 it was still possible to say that, although
steamers had been running between Karachi and Mithan Kot for the last twenty years, by far the greater amount of
goods arriving in Shikarpur were doing so by camel.
The difficulties of delta navigation were enormous, the river above Multan
being shallow, tortuous, and almost impossible to navigate. It had become
apparent that an alternative method of transport would have to be found to
avoid the delta. Two proposals were considered, one to build canals, and the
other to build a railway connecting the harbor with
the river.
The
important means of transport and communication are roads and railways.
However, it is also connected by air and the citizen uses Sukkur Airport for
the purpose.
Rohri is a railway junction
i.e. Karachi-Peshawar & Quetta-Karachi.
