New airport: Work on link road goes at a snail pace

ISLAMABAD: The National Highway Authority (NHA) has acquired land for the construction of a 9-kilometre-long link road to provide direct access to the parking area of the New Islamabad International Airport.

The link road project was approved by the prime minister in January, 2015.

However, only 20 per cent work could be completed so far.

A spokesperson for the new airport, Kashif Rehman, said that the land for the long link road had completely been acquired and work on the road was in progress.

“The project costing Rs4.5 billion will be completed by December this year,” Kashif said.

A major portion of the overall passage remained in limbo for months due to some land acquisition hurdles.

Kashif, however, claimed that there was no chance of cost increase of the project due to a delay in acquisition of the land.

The link road is the shortest and most cost-effective approaches to the parking area of the new airport.

Work on new airport is also in progress and it is scheduled to get operational by July 2017.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 28^th, 2016.