LAYYAH, April 9: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz is likely to inaugurate natural gas supply to Layyah next week. The project has been completed at a cost of Rs152 million, says Member of the National Assembly Niaz Ahmed Jhakhar.

The residents of Layyah will get gas almost 21 years after the announcement of the project.

In 1988, then chief minister Mian Nawaz Sharif announced the project at a public meeting in Kotla Haji Shah.

In 1989, Mr Jhakhar told a press conference that prime minister Benazir Bhutto had approved the project. But her government was sacked and assemblies were dissolved by president Ghulam Ishaq Khan.

In 1996, the second Benazir government arranged the survey of the project. Soon after the completion of the survey, the government was again dismissed.

In 1998, MNA Malik Ghulam Haider Thind (now district nazim) announced that prime minister Nawaz Sharif had approved the project. Exactly two months after the announcement, Mr Sharif was removed.

In 2002, Mr Jhakhar who was elected MNA on the Pakistan People’s Party ticket ditched the parent party and joined a breakaway group called PPPP-Patriots and “won approval of the project”.

On Feb 10, 2004, then minister for petroleum and natural resources Noraiz Shakoor performed earth breaking of the project. Now, in 2007 at last, Mr Aziz is to open the project.