CM orders beautifying Sharea Faisal to improve Karachi’s image

By Our Correspondent

November 05, 2023

Caretaker Sindh Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar (c) talks to media at MA Jinnah Road, Seabreeze area while Minister Home Brigadier (retd) Haris Nawaz (L) and IG Police Raja Riffat Mukhtar are standing beside him on September 7, 2023. — Instagram/@sindhcmhouse

Sindh Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar has decided to improve and beautify the main arteries of the city to enhance the image of Karachi.

“The people coming out of Jinnah Terminal and going to the airport take with them a very poor impression of the city because the road starting from the terminal gives a very dirty and poor look; therefore, I want to beautify Sharea Faisal in the first phase.”

The interim CM stated this on Friday while pressing over a joint meeting with officials of the KDA and the KMC and leading architects of the city to seek their advice for the purpose.

Director-General Karachi Development Authority Tahir Sangi briefed the CM on the environmental aspects of the issue.

The CM was told that street furniture, signage schemes, regulation of billboards about seizes and standards, streetlamps, and artwork depicting the typical urban character of Karachi, monuments, fountains and water bodies would be developed to beautify the area.

Baqar, in consultation with the architects attending the meeting, decided to improve all areas at the points of flyovers, overhead pedestrian bridges and various neglected segments of the road.

He directed the officials concerned to improve important sites which offered views of ugly and undesirable built structures. He said that in the first phase, the area from Falaknaz Apartment to Drigh Road would be beautified and then the remaining areas would be developed.

In July this year, then Sindh local government Minister Syed Nasir Hussain Shah had inaugurated a project of beautification and improvement of city’s main artery Sharea Faisal. Mayor Barrister Murtaza Wahab was also present on the occasion.

A series of development and beautification works would be carried out under a Rs195.71 million project on the 18-kilometer-long major artery from Jinnah International Airport to Hotel Metropole for improving the environment, facilities for pedestrian movement, landscaping, and artistic works and designs.