ISLAMABAD: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Communications was informed on Wednesday that the Karachi to Hyderabad Motorway, called ‘M-9’, will be formally opened for the public on Aug 14.

The committee chaired by Muzammil Qureshi was informed that work on the Motorway section between Hyderabad and Sukkur would begin soon as a contract for it was awarded and the process of land acquisition was under way. Work on the Multan-Sukkur section of the Motorway was already in progress.

Shahid Ashraf Tarar, chairman of the National Highways Authority (NHA), informed the committee that the NHA had achieved a major milestone by starting work on the whole of Motorway and the authority was focusing on dualisation of the Indus Highway.

Removal of encroachments from Lyari Expressway service road ordered

Highlighting the importance of the Indus Highway, he said it was a shorter road link between Peshawar and Karachi, adding that the Motorway and the Grand Trunk Road were on the left side of the Indus River, so, strategically there was a need for a road on the right bank also.

“Besides, the Indus Highway will reduce travel time between Peshawar and Karachi as it is shorter,” said Mr Tarar.

Members of the standing committee expressed concerns that the land mafia had encroached upon land along the Lyari Expressway, and an urgent action in that regard was needed.

The committee observed that payments had already been made to the affected people of a service road of the Lyari Expressway but encroachments had started to come up again.

The chairman of the committee directed the NHA, the Frontier Works Organisation and the Karachi administration to get the land cleared.

Communication Secretary Mohammad Sadeeq Memon informed the committee that the Lyari Expressway would be completed by September this year.

Meanwhile, the committee was informed that three new projects of the NHA had been included in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor of which two would be constructed in Balochistan and the third in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

Among the key projects being executed in KP are dualisation of a 35-kilometre road — from Northern Bypass, Peshawar, to Darra Adamkhel — and the road from Kohat to Saraye Gambila.

The NHA chairman informed the committee that the Takhtbai bridge had been completed, whereas the road from Chakdara to Bahrain via Khawazakhela and Mingora had been divided into four projects.

Published in Dawn, July 27th, 2017