Project director seeks cancellation of thousands of illegal Lyari Expressway plots

KARACHI: A major land scam has been uncovered in the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project (LERP) in Karachi, involving the unauthorised creation of thousands of residential and commercial plots that have caused billions of rupees in losses to the national exchequer, official documents showed.

In an official memorandum reviewed by HUM News English, LERP Project Director Shafique Ahmed Shah has formally requested the Sindh government to cancel approximately 9,000 residential plots and an estimated 3,000 to 4,000 commercial plots that were illegally carved out of public spaces.

The high-profile case is also currently under investigation by the National Accountability Bureau (NAB).

“Serious irregularities relating to the excessive and unauthorised creation of residential and commercial plots within various schemes of the Lyari Expressway Resettlement Project (LERP) have repeatedly surfaced,” Shah stated in the letter addressed to the Additional Chief Secretary of Sindh’s Local Government & Housing and Town Planning (HTP) Department.

According to the initial scrutiny and survey findings, the unauthorised plots were created by encroaching upon, reducing, or converting vital public infrastructure, including green belts, service roads, public amenity spaces, and open utility areas.

The financial impact of the residential plots alone is estimated at approximately Rs15 billion, calculated on prevailing minimum market values.

The LERP project director noted that the financial implications for the illegally created commercial plots are “substantially higher,” pushing the total valuation of the scandal well beyond Rs16 billion.

The letter said that the land-use violations were first flagged in a Special Audit Report by the Prime Minister’s Audit Team, which identified massive deviations from approved planning standards.

Subsequent physical verifications and site inspections were conducted following compliance directives from NAB Karachi.

The project director has urged the provincial government to initiate an immediate departmental review to cancel the fraudulent allotments, restore the original urban planning layouts, and safeguard state assets.

The multi-billion rupee LERP initiative was originally designed to relocate and resettle thousands of families displaced by the construction of the Lyari Expressway, a major highway corridor traversing Karachi.