Karachi's Shahrah-i-Bhutto to be fully open to public by end of May: Sharjeel Memon

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 Rapi