Sukkur is the third biggest city of Sindh after Karachi and Hyderabad. It has its great social, economic and strategic importance. Besides this, the peaceful environment of the city has also added to its significance both for the businessmen and the residents of the city. In a way, the city of Sukkur has been both lucky and unlucky for its dwellers. It has remained lucky in the sense that its residents have seen political representation of the city in one or the other form both at the federal and provincial set-ups in all the governments. At the same time, Sukkur has remained unlucky in the sense that its political representatives did not do anything for the social development of their city. Take, for example, the case of the towns roads. They have broken apart and are literally in shambles for the last eight years but hardly anyone seems serious in repairing them or making new ones. One would find important roads of the town, i.e. Station road, District Jail road, New Goth road, Barrage road, High Court road, Military road, Shikarpur road, New Pind road, Queens road, Regent Cinema road, Manzil Gah road, etc. in a wretched condition. It is a crying shame that Syed Nasir Shah of the PML(Q) remained Nazim of the Sukkur district for more than eight years but did not bother at all to better the citys roads. During the presidency of Pervez Musharraf, like other Nazims of districts of the country, millions of rupees were provided to the Nazim of Sukkur for the social uplift of the district but nobody knows (except for the former Nazim) as to where did all these funds given for the social development go? Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah has been the Federal Minister for Labour and Manpower in the present PPP government for the last two years. He has won his national assembly seat from Sukkur. Besides this, PPP Senator Islamuddin Shaikh also belongs to Sukkur. It is said that both these are highly influential members of the ruling party at Islamabad. But, regrettably, both too, have done nothing during all these years to better the condition of these roads. It seems that giving a much needed good look to these roads does not seem to be the high priority of these so-called leaders. Since I too belong to Sukkur town, therefore, I really feel hurt over the present condition of the roads. For Gods sake have some mercy on the town and its people. I also request the present ruling leadership of the Sukkur district that they should be equally serious towards the genuine problem of the residents of the town and should seriously improve the bad roads of the Sukkur town.-ABDUL SAMAD SAMO, Karachi, May 2.