KARACHI(National Times)- The Sindh government will fully open the Shahrah-i-Bhutto Expressway in Karachi to the public by the end of May, Sindh Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon said on Thursday.
Shahrah-i-Bhutto Expressway is a 39-kilometre high-speed corridor in Karachi that was noted to be 88.2 per cent complete as of March. Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had earlier this year directed the local government department to ensure that the expressway was fully operational by April 2026.
Announcing the upcoming completion of the project at a press conference in Karachi, Memon called the opening of the expressway “very good news” for Karachiites, asserting that they would be saving “at least an hour” coming into the city.
“We believe it will be a game changer in terms of traffic,” he said, as well as a big step for people’s convenience.
After having started to be opened in phases, he said, Shahrah-i-Bhutto will now directly connect to the M-9 highway by the end of the month, saving travel time for those heading out of Karachi.
Additionally, the minister announced that another road was being built to connect Karachi Port with Taj Haider Bridge. He said that the groundbreaking of that road would likely take place around the same time as the completion of Shahrah-i-Bhutto, “give or take one or two days”.
“Connectivity will keep getting easier and from this connectivity, people will have a lot more travel convenience,” he said, terming the new project a “game changer”.
“The Sindh government of PPP has made lots of efforts with these projects to bring people as much convenience as possible,” he added.
Alongside these two projects, Memon said, work was being carried out on other bridges, underpasses, roads and infrastructure by the Karachi Municipal Corporation (KMC) and local government departments. He said that the Sindh government’s top priority was to complete these projects as fast as possible.
He addressed the challenges faced during some projects, namely the “hot topic” of the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) Red Line project on University Road that has stalled for years and recently had its construction contract terminated.
On April 26, CM Murad announced that the deteriorated University Road will be reconstructed within 90 days as the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) resumed work on it.
“However many efforts we made to complete this project with good intentions and as quickly as possible, there are challenges,” Memon said. “With any big city projects, there are big challenges.”
Amid the issues faced, however, he said, “We tried with good intentions that government money be spared … all the delay was us trying to see how we could save the government’s funds, because that is public money.”
He added that the government had held conferences, met with the dispute board, raised challenges to their decisions and negotiated, but “the work was not getting done”, leading to the cancellation of the contract.
“The FWO is working on it day and night,” he said, highlighting that the first priority was the completion of the mixed traffic lane. “On the government’s side, or institution’s side, there was no ill will.”
At the time of the contract’s cancellation, Memon had told Dawn that the contract had been terminated due to delays in the project’s execution by the contractor. He had said the Asian Development Bank, which funds the project, was unhappy with the pace of work, as were stakeholders concerned about environmental impact.
Alongside the information about the transport projects, the senior minister recalled his visit to China alongside President Asif Zardari last month, where one of the Memoranda of Understanding (MoUs) signed was for a desalination plant in Karachi.
Memon highlighted the major issue of clean drinking water for Karachi residents, saying that the project would benefit many. He noted that while desalination plants are expensive, alternative sources are needed for drinking water as the population expands.
He also called attention to MoUs signed in the fields of agriculture and livestock, noting that these were the “only two pathways” for Pakistan’s rural population when it came to earning a livelihood. He highlighted the longtime friendship between Pakistan and China, describing the visit as a “great success”.
