KOHAT, March 4: The National Highway Authority has offered the southern access road of the Rs7 billion Kohat Tunnel Project to the Pakistan Air Force to use it as airstrip for fighter aircraft in any emergency.

The length of the road is straight 22 kilometres whereas it is 17.2 metres wide and the quality is enough to bear the load of any heavy aircraft without causing any harm to the road.

The project director of the Kohat Tunnel Project, Pervez Gul, talking to Dawn on Sunday, said the 1.889 kilometres long tunnel could itself be used as an hangar for fighter planes during war.

He said the quality of material used in the construction of the 31-kilometre-long access roads had been approved by the international laboratory of Japan which was an honour for the NHA.

The excavation of the tunnel which was to be completed in February last, he added, would now be finished by April 14 as the work had been hindered by the Afghanistan War after the Sept-11 attacks on the United States when all the foreign staff left the site due to fear of attack by Taliban.

Similarly, the tunnel would be opened for traffic and connected to the Indus Highway by May 2003.

He thanked the NWFP governor for taking keen interest in the project and helping a lot to remove the traditional bottlenecks in the way of the smooth running of the project like removal of high tension lines from above the road by Wapda and resolving land dispute with the tribesmen of Darra Adam Khel.

The NHA, he said, had paid Rs80 million to the tribesmen for acquiring land in the tribal territory but the issue was yet to be resolved with a few tribes residing near Kohat due to the absence of concerned official which in the past used to be the deputy commissioner who also acted as the political agent.

But he hoped the home secretary had promised him to take up the matter with the concerned people both in the government and the tribal area to resolve the matter peacefully and quickly.