LAHORE, Aug 13: Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi inaugurated the Rs781 million Dharampura underpass here on Saturday evening and gave alternate land to 40 families displaced because of the inclusion of their katchi abadi in the project.

The underpass, the biggest in the province having seven underground passages besides a railway bridge, was opened to traffic afterwards despite the fact that workers were still giving final touches to it. The chief minister said people should not mind if some tiles were yet to be put in place.

A number of provincial ministers, MPAs, senior government officials and PML activists earlier received the chief minister who handed over the ownership rights to the affectees of the katchi abadi.

Talking to reporters after unveiling the plaque of the project whose completion was delayed for about four months due to problems cropping up during its execution, the chief minister congratulated the people of Lahore for having “a very good underpass.”

He said the government was executing development works all over the province, especially in the southern Punjab. It had constructed an overhead bridge in Faisalabad and an underpass in Rawalpindi.

In Lahore, the chief minister said, the government had constructed four underpasses. Around 300,000 vehicles would daily pass the Dharampura underpass, giving a great deal of relief to the motorists.