Developing infrastructure: Reworking the road networks

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) government has plans to undertake 20 new district road projects which will link rural areas to motorway and highway networks, said officials at the Civil Secretariat on Monday. The initiative is meant to boost economic activity and create communication links for less privileged communities. The cost of the project is estimated at Rs1.4 billion of which Rs770 million will be spent in the current fiscal year. The list of new roads includes the GT-Cherat and the Malam Baba-Nizampur roads in Nowshera district. A four-kilometre road from the Cherat Cement Factory to Sheikhi village, Nowshera is also in the pipeline. By 2015 the government plans to execute a mega project and construct 478 kilometre of roads and 11 bridges in the province with the help of a foreign donor agency.  In a two-year project starting 2013-14, Garam Chashma Road in Chitral and three bridges would be blacktopped and realigned. This would cost approximately Rs30 million, of which Rs 15 million would be spent in the current fiscal year.

Published in The Express Tribune, July 23^rd, 2013.