GILGIT, Jan 28: The Northern Areas Development Project (NADP) will undertake the construction work on 190-km-long road network in the remote Diamer district, 200kms south of Gilgit, sources told Dawn.

They said Rs1.25 billion would be spent on the roads in collaboration with the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), International Fund for Agriculture Development (IFAD) and government of Pakistan.

A 53-km-long road would be build at Rs55 million from Chilas to Babusar. Work on 15kms had already been completed on the same project, the sources said.

Similarly, the sources said, a 15km-long road would be constructed between Chilas and Thack Nallah at Rs9 million. It would also serve as an alternative route to AJK Neelam Valley that often remains isolated owing to the shelling on the line of control (LoC).

An amount of Rs9 million would be spent on a link road between Thore valley and Karakoram Highway (KKH), and two 22-km-long each roads for heavy vehicular traffic would be built to link Darel and Tangir tehsil with the KKH, at a cost of Rs40 million.