MINGORA: The residents on Monday lauded the opening of the Swat Motorway to light traffic and said the project would promote tourism and trade in Malakand division.

On May 14, Chief Minister Mahmood Khan had directed the authorities to open the Swat Motorway to traffic before Eidul Fitr.

However, he had said that the project would be formally inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan after Eidul Fitr.

The 81-kilometer-long motorway has been linked with the Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway at the Karnal Sher Khan interchange among claims that it will reduce the Swat-Islamabad distance to three hours and Swat-Peshawar’s to two hours.

Residents say project to promote tourism, trade in Malakand

“Today, we reached Swat from Peshawar in two hours unlike the past when the journey used to be four hours long,” said Shakil Khan of Swat, who worked in Peshawar and travelled to Swat every weekend.

Zahid Khan of Mingora said the Islamabad-Swat journey on GT Road used to take five-six hours to complete and even more in case of traffic jams or other incidents but the Swat Motorway reduced the time to less than three hours.

The residents said the Swat Motorway would help boost tourism and trade in the region.

“A large number of tourists from across the country travel to Swat, Dir and Chitral. They always complained about the bad shape of roads and traffic jams but now, the Swat Motorway will facilitate them,” said Wakeel Khan, who owns a hotel in Mingora.

The traders of Swat hailed the opening of the Swat Motorway and said the motorway would facilitate their trade with Lahore and other cities of Punjab.

“We hope that the motorway will soon open to heavy traffic. Our trade activities have transferred from the GT Road to the motorway so that it will save our both time and money,” said Bacha Ali, a cloth merchant of Mingora.

Published in Dawn, June 4th, 2019