SIALKOT: The Sialkot International Airport needs a good connecting road network to facilitate the people coming to board a flight or landing at the airport.

Though the airport has made impressive strides in recent years by increasing direct flights to different domestic and international destinations, on grounds it is a hard point for the passengers and their attendants because of the pothole-infested roads, bone-breaking roads.

The roads need immediate repair include Daska-Sambrial Road, Kulluwal-Jethikey-Airport Road, Sialkot-Gohadpur-Airport Road, Head Marala-Saidpur Road, Head Marala-Sialkot Road and roads of Bajwat villages.

People from Daska, Sambrial, Pasrur, Badiana, Chawinda, Zafarwal, Shakargarh, Narowal, Gujranwala, Wazirabad and Gujrat have to suffer a great ordeal to arrive at the airport.

Exporters Arif Mehmood, Muhammad Aslam Mughal, Sheikh Muhammad Pervaiz, Chaudhry Allah Rakha, Basharat Ali, Khalid Mehmood, Bashir Ahmed, Ghulam Hussain, Amjad Iqbal, Muhammad Luqman, Rana Liaqat, Muhammad Qasim and Muhammad Jehangir expressed grave concern over this miserable situation of airport roads and demanded that the Punjab government fulfill its promises regarding the construction of the roads.

They said that the roads with potholes and ditches not only increased the traveling time but also damaged vehicles.
Also, the airport authorities say these roads have been the victim of the negligence of the Sialkot district administration and the Punjab government for several years as their repeated appeals regarding the repairing of these roads have fallen on deaf years.

They said that early repairing of roads leading to the airport could jazz up the pace of trade activities, besides, opening the new vistas of socio-economic and human development in the golden export triangle - Sialkot, Gujrat and Gujranwala districts.

Published in Dawn, January 26th, 2019