• Road users face severe problems due to dug-up M.A. Jinnah Road
• PM, governor order PIDCL to address KMC’s concerns

KARACHI: Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori was on Thursday informed by the officials of the Pakistan Infrastructure Development Company Limited (PIDCL) that the suspension of work on the Green Line expansion project was causing a daily loss of Rs20 million.

The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), backed by the PPP-led Sindh government, had halted the federally funded multi-billion project of the Green Line Bus extension, citing the PIDCL’s failure to obtain a no-objection certificate (NOC) from municipal authorities before launching the work.

However, the meeting the Sindh governor chaired did not point an accusing finger towards any institutions for halting the work. Instead, the governor instructed the authorities concerned to “immediately resolve the issues and obstacles” hindering the timely completion of the project.

A federal government spokesperson also confirmed that Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had taken notice of the suspension of the extension work and agreed to address all those concerns raised by Karachi Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab.

While the authorities are optimistic that the extension work is set to resume soon, it seems that the people of Karachi will have to wait a little longer and endure a bit more inconvenience before the authorities resolve the issues.

The municipal leadership of Karachi last month challenged the authority of the federal government by questioning the role of its PIDCL in the urban development projects, insisting that all such initiatives in Karachi should fall under the city’s municipal jurisdiction.

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More than nine years after the ground-breaking of its first phase that completed three years ago, the long-awaited work of the second phase of the Green Line finally began by the federal government in August 2025.

The execution of the works continued until September 18, 2025, but was then stopped on the directives of the mayor, leaving M.A. Jinnah Road dug up. The stoppage of work is causing a great deal of inconvenience to road users.

“Recently, a delegation of MQM-P [Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan] met the prime minister and raised the issue Green Line extension,” federal government spokesperson for Sindh affairs Barrister Raja Khaliq Uz Zaman Ansari told Dawn.

“The PM has taken the notice and issued directives to resolve the issue. Now we are addressing all concerns raised by Karachi mayor [Barrister Wahab] to resolve the issue. There are four basic issues, including façade to façade improvement of everything affected during construction, like roads, streets or footpaths,” he said.

Following the Prime Minister’s assurance, hopes have been revived that the project will soon resume.

“The project is currently in the documentation phase, and we hope that once these formalities are completed, work on the Green Line extension will resume very soon,” said Barrister Ansari.

Envisaged and executed in February, 2016, by the then prime minister Nawaz Sharif, the Green Line project was originally scheduled to complete in a year with an estimated cost of around Rs16.85 billion.

However, it was only partially completed in January 2022, after almost six years, with the cost reaching Rs35bn. The first phase of the Green Line project connects Surjani Town to the Numaish intersection.

The second phase will connect Numaish to Municipal Park on M.A. Jinnah Road.

The newly initiated portion from Numaish to Municipal Park would run at grade level and include three stations with Traffic Signal Priority (TSP) system planned exclusively for the BRT service.

The TSP is a strategy where traffic lights are temporarily adjusted to favour specific vehicles, such as public transit or emergency vehicles, reducing delays and improving service reliability and response times.

Published in Dawn, October 31st, 2025