Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has formed a committee to complete the Lyari Expressway project by removing encroachments and paying compensation to the affectees of the project to complete development work in the larger interest of public.
The chief minister issued these directives while presiding over a meeting of Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project at the CM House on Friday. The meeting was attended by Minister for Finance Syed Murad Ali Shah, Chief Secretary Siddique Memon, Principal Secretary to CM Alamuddin Bullo, ACS (Development) Aijaz Ali Khan, SMBR Mohammad Wasim, Commissioner Shoaib Siddiqui, Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput, representative of NHA, DC West, DC Central and concerned officers.
The commissioner said that 2.2 kilometers of way in District Central and West was to be cleared on payment of compensation for the leased and other properties. “The DC Central has already issued award for Rs 78 affected peoples of leased property in his district,” he said and added that the prepared cheques could not be received by concerned affected people because the Sindh High Court had granted status quo. He said the numbers of affected people who had not been paid compensation had filed constitutional petition in the high court for payment of Rs 50,000 per affectee.
Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput told the meeting that he had released Rs 50 million to the Nazir of high court for onward distribution among the affected people and the process was in progress. He said the federal government had released Rs 500 million for clearance of 1.5 kilometers portion in District West.
Senior Member Board of Revenue Mohammad Wasim said that the federal government had already released the amount to the concerned DCs to vacate the encroached areas to start construction. “I would suggest vacating the area and then hand over the position to the NHA which would start work through FWO,” he said.
The chief minister directed the chief secretary to form a committee under the commissioner with representatives from finance, revenue, NHA, FWO and concerned DCs so that all the issues creating bottlenecks in the completion of the project could be removed.
He also directed the chief secretary to talk to AG Sindh for removing legal problems pending in the high court. ‘This must be given priority. In the next meeting, I want to hear progress of the work not the problems,” he said.
