NHA gets Rs 50-mn for Peshawar Northern Bypass project

Islamabad: The Ministry of Communication has finally managed to get Rs 50 million from the National Highway Authority for 34 kilometers long Peshawar Northern Bypass project, Communication Minister Dr Arbab Alamgir Khan said.

He said that the cost of the project has reached Rs 12 billion against the PC-1 estimate, which was Rs 5.3 billion. The project was delayed due to the absence of necessary funding required for the Bypass.

Sources in the Ministry of Communication told Business Recorder that the minister has made representations to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to arrange special funds for the project. Dr Arbab confirmed that he also met Advisor to Prime Minister on Finance Shaukat Tarin for sharing details of the project.

He said that initially we would start land acquisition for the project, which is likely to start in the coming week. He said that the early construction of the Bypass is among the top priorities of the ministry. The minister further said that there is dire need for early completion of the project in view of the security reasons and law and order situation in Peshawar.

He said that timely completion of the project is necessary due to heavy traffic volume on the main city roads. He further said that Motorway is not linked with Ring Road due to which many problems have cropped up and now this dual carriage will be directly linked with Motorway to overcome these problems.

He said that bottlenecks in the project were being sorted out in collaboration with the senior officials of the ministry and now the project would start soon. This project was handed over to the NHA in 2003 and initially a 26-km long road was designed to be constructed as part of the Peshawar Ring Road project, but now an alternate design has been prepared, the minister added.

According to the new design, it will be a four-lane expressway that will link the Peshawar-Islamabad Motorway with the Peshawar Torkham Expressway and will bypass the Hayatabad and Bara markets ending at the Takhta Beg Bridge near Jamrud.