QUETTA: Independent member of the National Assembly from Lasbela and Gwadar Muhammad Aslam Bhootani has said the federal government has decided to construct a dual-carriage highway from Chaman to Karachi at a cost of Rs200 billion.

He said it was a longstanding demand of the people of Balochistan, as hundreds of people had lost their lives in road accidents on the Quetta-Karachi highway because it was a single-carriage road.

He told reporters on Sunday that the plan for the Chaman-Karachi highway was not included in the Federal PSDP for 2020-21, but later the project was approved. The project would be built under a public-private partnership initiative.

Mr Bhootani said that work on preparing a feasibility report on the mega-project would be completed by April next. The federal government is offering incentives for attracting private companies to the project in the same manner as the Karachi-Hyderabad M-9 highway was constructed.

He said the culture of paying toll tax should be promoted so that private companies could come forward for investing in Balochistan. Private companies hesitate to invest in various projects under public-private partnership because of the problem.

“Private companies that want to invest billions of rupees in the projects also want to keep their capital safe,” he added.

Published in Dawn, July 13th, 2020