I travel through Islamia College every single day. Every day I look at the same broken road and think the same thing: I wish the Sindh government would finally come to its senses and find an alternative route for the people it has trapped here. Nothing has happened.
The work on University Road, starting from the Islamia College stretch, is the BRT Red Line. Construction began in early 2022, with completion first promised for 2023, then 2024, then the end of 2026. Now the deadline has been pushed to June 2027, and the Sindh High Court has said it expects the line to be operational by October 2027. That is nearly five years of digging for a project that was meant to take about two. After all this time, the Sindh government has still not finished it.
How much delay is that? Measured against the original 2023 target, at least four years. And how much money has been lost? The project was announced in 2017 at about Rs79 billion, and the estimate rose to Rs103 billion. A more recent position paper puts it far higher, at a revised cost of Rs184.63 billion, with only Rs37.22 billion spent up to the end of May 2026. Inflation and the weaker rupee explain part of that, but delay is a big reason the bill keeps growing. And no paper counts what commuters have lost in time, fuel, and patience.
What hurts me most is how the work was done. Roads that were in good condition were torn up and rebuilt, and in the name of construction the area around them filled with traffic. I see it with my own eyes. The road from Jail Road to Islamia College has been closed completely, and a journey that should take one minute now takes one hour.
Think about what surrounds this area. There are so many hospitals here that I cannot even count them. The road towards Aga Khan Hospital is jammed. The road towards Liaquat National is jammed. The road towards Medicare is jammed. I have watched ambulances stuck in the same traffic as everyone else, and when there is a patient inside, that is not an inconvenience. That is a life at risk.
Businesses are paying too. The car showrooms on Jamshed Road were shut for more than two years because of this project. These are families with rent to pay and staff to feed, and nobody has said who will compensate them.
So who is responsible? In April the government cancelled the contract for the Mosamiyat to Numaish section over the contractor’s delays. But a board formed to resolve the dispute reportedly held the government itself responsible for the delay and decided the contractor should be paid Rs3.7 billion in additional expenses. If that is right, this is not only a contractor problem. Planning, land, and utility relocation all belong to the government.
I have a few simple questions for the Sindh government. If you cannot complete one project, why do you start ten new ones? What was your alternative plan for this traffic, and where is it? Is one bus route more important than the time of the people of Karachi?
My demands are plain. Take action against those responsible for these delays. Look inside your own ranks too, because the people who created this mess are partly within the government itself. And stop starting new roads until the ones you have already torn up are finished. Karachi has waited long enough.
