GUJRAT: Punjab former chief minister Pervaiz Elahi has said that the PML-Q government had planned six-lane Lahore-Sialkot motorway in 2006.

Talking to the media here on Tuesday, he said: “Had the Sharifs not halted the project, it would have been completed in 2010 at a cost of Rs23 billion. Now they have announced its completion at a cost of Rs43.85bn and Gujrat is not part of it.

“The present rulers first stop projects of our tenure and then after making some changes relaunch these at a much higher cost only to get political mileage.”

He said construction work on motorway had been started in 2007 after formal inauguration. The motorway was to start from Sambrial on Sialkot-Wazirabad Road and go straight to Lahore and it was to be connected with Gujrat through construction of bridge on the Chenab near Shahbazpur.

Mr Elahi said other Sialot projects of his tenure included establishment of three industrial zones with the cooperation of China and two international technical universities with the help of Sweden and Austria. “These projects were stopped on the pretext of non-availability of funds whereas both the universities were set up in India.”

He also showed clippings of newspapers carrying inauguration news of Sialkot-Lahore Motorway in April 2007.

Published in Dawn, August 24th, 2016