Pak-UK partnership: Twenty new bridges up and running in K-P

20 new steel bridges have opened links in the province that were destroyed by floods in 2010.

Twenty new steel bridges have been constructed in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P), through a partnership of the UK’s Department for International Development (DFID) and the K-P government, said a press release.

The new bridges, which vary in length to up to 200ft, replaced those destroyed either by the conflict in 2009 or the devastating floods in 2010. More than 1,500 pedestrians are using these new bridges. Earlier, many parts of K-P had been cut off.

In one village in Swat, three people drowned while trying to cross the river. Men and women could not get to work. Children could not get to school. Groceries and food rations became scarcer, so increasing their price. The new bridges have helped bring back stability to the province.

The bridges have been designed to withstand large scale floods, and whose quality should not deteriorate for at least 50 years. A total of 46 new bridges, supplied by the UK, will be installed across Malakand division by the end of this year. The project is being co-funded by the governments of UK and K-P.

Published In The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2012.