PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Highways Council has brought two more roads under the provincial government, and has also approved the annual maintenance plan of the Pakhtunkhwa Highways Authority (PKHA) for the year 2020-21.

The approval was given at the 19th meeting of the council chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan, according to a statement.

Provincial minister for environment Ishtiaq Urmar, special assistant to CM on local government Kamran Bangash, additional chief secretary Shakeel Qadir, secretary finance Atif Rehman, secretary communication & works Ijaz Hussain Ansari, managing director PKHA and other high-ups were in attendance.

The meeting approved provicialisation of 34-kilometre Kalam-Mahodhand Road as (S-18) and 63-kilometre Abbottabad-Sherwan-Beer Road as (S-12) to help boost tourism as well as mining activities through the availability of better road infrastructure.

The meeting also approved budget of PKHA worth Rs4.4 billion for the financial year 2020-21.

The chief minister directed the PKHA high-ups to ensure implementation of the annual maintenance plan in letter and spirit, and not to carry out any new construction work under the plan. The meeting was given a detailed presentation about the implementation status of the decisions taken in the last meeting of the council, achievements, details of the provincial roads, development portfolio under the new ADP and budget of PKHA.

The meeting was informed that besides construction of new highways and roads, PKHA had been entrusted with the task of maintenance/repair of 46 different provincial highways with a total length of 3,099 kilometres inclusive of the 383 kilometres long highways of the merged areas.

The forum accorded formal approval to the Annual Maintenance Plan-A of the highway authority which will roughly cost Rs510.56 million.

While giving approval in principle to the Plan-B of an estimated Rs1.4 billion cost, the forum directed the PKHA to move a summary to this effect.

Regarding the new year development portfolio of PKHA, the meeting was informed that construction of dual carriageway from Chamkani to Badbher, Peshawar, construction of a flyover/underpass at Farooq Azam Chowk, Charsadda, feasibility study, detailed engineering design and construction of Swat Expressway’s phase 2, feasibility study and construction of Kundian-Kalam Road and a number of other projects had been reflected in the new year ADP.

Published in Dawn, July 26th, 2020