KARACHI, Feb 5: The City District Government of Karachi has completed 90 percent work on mega projects costing Rs21 billion in eight months and Karachi will soon emerge as a modern and beautiful city. This was stated by Project DirectorTaameer-e-Karachi programme Rauf Akhtar Farooqi.

He said the programme’s total outlay stands at Rs29 billion and spans over 2005-07. Rs5 billion out of this sum was given by the federal government, Rs6 billion by the Sindh government, Rs6 billion by the city Ggovernment and Rs12 billion by stake-holders.

The stake-holders include Pakistan Steel, Port Qasim Authority, Export Processing Zone Authority, Civil Aviation Authority, Military Land and Cantonments, National Logistic Cell, Export Promotion Bureau, Karachi Port Trust, Oil Companies, State Bank/Banks, DHA and Ministry of Works.

The project director said KPT was assigned the construction of a two-level flyover at Hino Chowrangi at a cost of Rs594 million, rehabilitation of the 4.55km long Mai Kolachi Bypass at Rs699 million, rehabilitation of the 2.56km long M.T. Khan Road at Rs266 million, rehabilitation of M.A. Jinnah Road at Rs439 million.

The PQA is to ensure the completion of Shahrah-e-Mehran at Rs119.44 million, construction of a 1.9km long road from National Highway to Shahrah-e-Mehran at Rs250 million. The EPA is to carry out a feasibility and design of link corridor between Road 8000 and Shahrah-e-Mehran at Rs2.355 million.

The Pakistan Steel is constructing a flyover at Quaidabad at a cost of Rs217 million besides dualisation of link road connecting the National Highway with the Super Highway at a cost of Rs575 million. The PIA will improve and rehabilitate University Road from Mazar-e-Quaid to Malir Cantonment at Rs312 million while the State Bank will spend Rs230 million to rehabilitate the 2.25km long I.I. Chundrigar Road.

Other projects include improvement and rehabilitation of 4.8km long Shahrah-e-Ghalib at Rs266 million, improvement and rehabilitation of Sharea Faisal from Jinnah Terminal to Pakistan Steel at Rs630 million, construction of a road from Super Highway to Jinnah Terminal via Malir cantonment at Rs789 million, construction of Road-8000 Korangi at Rs950 million, a bridge over Malir River connecting Shah Faisal Colony with Korangi No 10 costing Rs1,057.593 million, construction of Sohrab Goth inter-change at Rs439.61 million.

The city government has already completed three flyovers and three underpasses besides widening three roads at Liaquatabad, Gharibabad and Nazimabad. This was done to construct the signal-free Corridor-I from SITE to Airport which has reduced travel time from 90 minutes earlier to only 20 minutes. The Corridor-I project consists nine mega projects costing more than Rs3 billion. The total distance of this corridor from Karsaz to SITE area is 10.5km. It has a width of 13.5 metres with four lanes on each track. There are 33 bus stops, seven pedestrian overhead bridges and a two lane service road on each track. Th e corridor also has electric poles that are 12 metres high with 250wattlight fixtures.

The project director said the foundation-stone of multi-million dollar 25kms long elevated expressway from Quaidabad to Jinnah Bridge will be laid soon while Pakistan's biggest park, Bagh Ibn-e-Qasim which is spread over130 acres and has cost more than Rs350 million will also be inaugurated shortly. The expressway will be completed in 36 months.—APP