Governor breaks ground for three flyovers to be built by next year

Sindh Governor Imran Ismail on Thursday performed the groundbreaking of three flyovers to be built on different intersections in Karachi by next year with financial support of the federal government.

The governor performed the groundbreaking of the flyovers at Sakhi Hassan Chowrangi, Five Star Chowrangi and KDA Chowrangi, all the areas situated in District Central. Mayor Wasim Akhtar attended the ceremony.

Construction on these projects would be completed by March next year with a total cost of Rs2.14 billion. Addressing journalists on the occasion, Governor Ismail said Prime Minister Imran Khan has taken special interest in the development and progress of Karachi because the city’s progress meant the country’s progress.

He said that the federal government would continue to provide the fullest support and assistance for the city’s development and progress. Terming Karachi among the top-most priorities of the federal government, the governor said that all stakeholders were being duly consulted for its development.

The governor alleged that Karachi had been consistently ignored during the past regimes and that was why the city had now been infested with numerous civic problems. He said that the Centre had formed a Karachi Transformation Committee comprising experts of different sectors for development of the city. He invited the Sindh government to take part in the federally-funded development projects being built in the province.

Replying to a question, the governor informed during his first visit of Karachi last month the PM had announced three seawater desalination plants would be built on shoreline of Karachi and also to expand the existing Northern Bypass in the city to make it a six-lane vehicular corridor for heavy traffic.

The contractors engaged to build federally-funded development projects in Karachi have been given unequivocal instruction in most clear-cut terms to avoid corruption and maintain complete transparency in their construction work for such projects, he said.

Regarding the Green Line bus project being built by the federal government, the governor said that federal authorities had been seeking a viable operating partner to be engaged for the project. In case such a partner was found in the next two months, then the bus operations on the Green Line project could commence afterwards in six months.

He expressed hope that all concerned stakeholders, including members of national and provincial assemblies, and the mayor of Karachi would sit together and would be able to find a way out in the next one-and-a-half months to resolve the long-unresolved issue of the residents of Pakistan Quarters in Karachi facing eviction from their homes.

Mayor Akhtar expressed gratitude to Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Sindh governor for taking full interest in Karachi’s development and progress and added that both stood fully with all the concerned stakeholders in the city to achieve this cause.