Lyari Expressway: CM wants progress, not problems

The project, which started in 2001, has been stuck in limbo for over 10 years

KARACHI: The Sindh government constituted on Friday a committee under the supervision of the Karachi commissioner to complete the Lyari Expressway project by removing encroachments.

Representatives of the National Highway Authority (NHA), Frontier Works Organisation (FWO), provincial finance department and the relevant deputy commissioners will be members of the committee.

The Lyari Expressway, a 16.5 kilometre, eight-lane thoroughfare was started in 2001 but has been stuck in limbo since 2004 due to shortage of funds and other technical difficulties. Currently, only a 2.2-kilometre-long portion of the northbound track remains unfinished.

Presiding over a meeting to discuss the project at CM House, chief minister Qaim Ali Shah said: "The affected people must be duly compensated so that the remaining portion of the project may be completed in the larger interest of the public."

The commissioner said that 2.2 kilometres of the expressway in District Central and West has to be cleared after payment of compensation for the leased properties and encroachments. He said that district Central deputy commissioner has already issued compensation for 78 affected people who had leased properties in his district and has prepared cheques for them.

The cheques could not be received by the affected people because the Sindh High Court has granted a stay order. He said that a number of affected people, who have not been paid compensation, had filed a constitutional petition in the high court.

Finance secretary Sohail Rajput told the meeting that his department had released Rs50 million to the Nazir of the high court for distribution among the affected people and the process was in progress.

He said that the federal government had recently released Rs500 million for the clearance of a 1.5 kilometre-patch of the expressway in District West. "The federal government has released a total of Rs700 million for the resettlement project," said the commissioner, while speaking to The Express Tribune.

Senior member of the Board of Revenue, Muhammad Wasim, added that the amount had been released to the relevant DCs who were responsible to clear the encroached areas to start construction. "I would advise them to vacate the area as soon as possible and then hand over the possession to the NHA, which will start work through the FWO," he said.

The chief minister directed the chief secretary to form a committee headed by the Karachi commissioner with representatives from finance, revenue, NHA, FWO and the DCs so that all the issues creating bottlenecks in the completion of the project could be removed. He also directed the chief secretary to speak to the Sindh advocate-general to resolve legal issues pending in the high court.

Published in The Express Tribune, September 12^th, 2015.