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| March 5, 2003 | Wednesday | Muharram 1, 1424 |
Lyari Expressway be expedited: PM
ISLAMABAD, March 4: Prime Minister Mir Zafarullah Khan Jamali has directed the federal and provincial authorities of Sindh to remove snags in the Lyari Expressway Project at Karachi, to be completed in June 2004.
Official sources told Dawn here on Tuesday that the prime minister directed the officials concerned to make sure that the Rs5 billion Lyari project was not delayed due to various problems.
One of the major problems was said to be a row over resettlement of displaced persons. The Planning Commission was asked to coordinate with the ministry of finance and the chief minister of Sindh to get the Lyari project completed on time.
However, the sources said the project was not likely to be completed by June next year even though Rs455 million, out of the allocated Rs900 million in the current financial years’s Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP), had been spent during the first quarter, which constituted 50 per cent of the money set aside.
According to the Planning Commission, the National Highway Authority (NHA) has not provided the report on physical progress so far achieved towards completion of the vital project.
The project envisages construction of a 16.5km, two-lane expressway with allied structures.
The Planning Commission has formulated a status of a number of infrastructure projects approved earlier by the government.
About the Karachi Northern Bypass Project, it said that as far as physical progress was concerned, only 1.3km of earthwork had been completed. The completion of the project was due in June 2004. The project aims to construct 62.137km, two-lane bypass road with allied structures. The estimated cost of the project is Rs2.6 billion with no foreign exchange component.
The Planning Commission also said that the expenditure incurred on the Kohat Tunnel and Access Road project up to June 2002 was Rs3.9 billion which was 59 per cent of the total allocation. As against the allocation of Rs1.6 billion in the PSDP 2002-03, Rs125 million have been utilized during the first quarter of the year, which is 8 per cent of the allocation.
The progress on the projects is according to the schedule.
About the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway, the Planning Commission said the NHA was facing a problem in the encashment of a Rs16.8 billion bank guarantee paid as advance to the contractors.
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