TRAVELLING from Multan to Dera Ghazi Khan along N-70 is a mixed experience. Up to the Muzaffargarh bypass the journey is excellent as the road is newer with dual carriages, overhead bridges and bypasses.

From Muzaffargarh’s T. Erdogan Hospital to D.G. Khan it is 57km and single track. Not only is this handling all the traffic to and from Balochistan to Punjab, this road also links a substantial amount of traffic using the Indus Highway from Sindh and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to Punjab. This traffic includes wide-bodied buses, transport trailers, oil tankers from Parco, Kapco, as well as cars jeeps wagons, etc.

The current condition of this single carriage highway constructed three decades ago in the mid ‘80s is deteriorating daily owing to the traffic load. Its carrying capacity is choked, resulting in lengthy traffic jams, specifically at Qureshi Mor. There are numerous but avoidable fatal traffic accidents along it, owing to the single carriage, heavy congestion and overspeeding traffic. Periodic surface patch-ups of this section are insufficient for the traffic load on it.

There is a large cantonment in D.G. Khan in addition to defence installations. D.G. Khan also houses a nuclear processing facility. N-70 is thus the main and vital arterial highway to D.G. Khan from Multan for civilian and defence purposes.

The population growth and the consequential economic growth in south Punjab is exponential as in the rest of the country. It is time Highway N-70 is brought up to the standards of comparative equivalence in other regions. Especially in the light of CPEC roads it stands out as an eyesore. Dualisation of N-70, including the Ghazi Ghat bridge on the Indus, will also fulfil historic political promises made in 1998 and 2011 by the prime minister and the Punjab chief minister for this specific project.

It will provide critical support to the economy of south Punjab, as well as to the defence of Pakistan, and redress some of the popular grievances in the region.

Engr. S. Najamuddin
Multan

Published in Dawn, November 18th, 2016