K-P CM wants roads to tourist spots built soon

Mahmood directs officials to float tenders for matured schemes

PESHAWAR:

Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Mahmood Khan has directed the quarters concerned to ensure progress on new and ongoing tourism road projects within stipulated timelines.

“Timely completion of these projects is of vital importance for the promotion of tourism activities in the province,” he said while presiding over a meeting regarding the construction of access roads to tourism sites, here the other day at CM House, read an official handout issued here on Monday.

Besides Provincial Minister Ishtiaq Urmar, Principal Secretary to the CM Amjad Ali Khan and administrative secretaries and other authorities concerned also attended the meeting.

Officials briefed the huddle in detail about tourism road projects reflected in the current Annual Development Program (ADP). They said that work on various projects of roads with billions of rupees was under way in different regions of the province especially in Malakand and Hazara region to facilitate the tourists.

Officials said that the construction of 11 different tourism roads in the Malakand Division was in progress with a revised estimated cost of Rs4.812 billion. Similarly, in order to improve accessibility to tourism sites in Hazara Division work on six different roads was also under way that would cost Rs4.6 billion.

Moreover, they said that the construction of a road to the historic tourist site in the southern region, Sheikh Badin was also reflected in the current ADP having an estimated cost of Rs3 billion.

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Under the integrated development project, they added that work on two different schemes was also in progress that included improvement and rehabilitation of 24km Abbottabad-Thandiayani and 23km Mankiyal-Bada Sarai roads, the estimated cost of which is Rs2.5 billion and Rs3.4 billion, respectively.

The chief minister directed the authorities concerned to float the tenders of the matured schemes so that physical work on those schemes could be initiated well in time, adding that e-bidding and e-tendering be adopted for the purpose.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 20^th, 2021.