KARACHI: Senior Minister Sharjeel Memon announced on Saturday that University Road would be reopened for traffic by the end of July.

The key artery has been partially closed for months to facilitate the construction of the Red Line BRT project.

While reviewing the progress at the site, he said the work was continuing day and night. He also acknowledged public inconvenience due to the delay in the completion of the project.

He said that while the roads under the administrative control of the federal government in Sindh remained in poor condition, the provincial government had upgraded roads across the province using its own resources, with work ongoing.

He also said that a new terminal was being constructed on the Northern Bypass to ease Karachi’s traffic burden.

The minister said that Karachi absorbed a major share of the country’s employment and health burden, as people from across the country moved here for work, so this factor must be considered in the city’s comparisons with other cities.

He said that Karachi’s motorway link should have started from the city itself, but “the opposite situation was observed.”

He also spoke about the water crisis in Karachi, saying that the city, located at the tail end of the country, faces a 20 per cent water shortage.

Speaking about the election campaign in Gilgit-Baltistan, the senior minister said that public attention in the region was focused on the PPP, while some federal ministers went there and just made development announcements.

In response to a question, he said that no draft of the 28th Amendment had been prepared and that these were merely rumours.

Regarding the Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan, the minister sacrastically said that the people “do not take MQM-Pakistan leaders seriously”.

Published in Dawn, June 7th, 2026