BAHAWALPUR, Jan 18: Inordinate delay in completion of the busy Bahawalpur-Ahmedpur East Tarinda Road dualization has prolonged miseries of motorists and commuters.

The project was started by the National Highway Authority last year at a cost of Rs1,330 million and was scheduled to be completed by Dec 31, but only one lane has been constructed so far.

The construction work has created multifarious problems for the motorists and led to some accidents. Eyewitnesses say the Sunday's head-on collision between a Jalalpur Peerwala-bound bus and a trailer near Noorpur Noranga, which claimed 12 lives, is the outcome of the construction work.

The contractor has so far constructed only one lane which all the drivers use because the other lane is still to be constructed. It is scandalous that the completion of the whole project will take several months.

It is pertinent to mention here that vehicular traffic coming from Karachi prefer Tarinda-Ahmedpur East and Bahawalpur route, which is considered to be the shortest one for Lahore and Rawalpindi.

It saves time because the vehicles adopting this route will pass through Bahawalpur, Lodhran and Khanewal and avoid traffic mess of Multan city many of whose roads are under patch work.

The general public has time and again drawn the attention of the officials towards the slow pace of work on this road, but to no avail. In April last, the Bahawalpur Chamber of Commerce and Industry office-bearers brought the matter into the notice of Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi during his visit here.

The chief minister had expressed concern over delay in construction and directed the department concerned to complete it, but not much progress has been made. It is feared that if the dualization work is not completed on war footing, lives of travellers especially those using public transport will be at stake.