KP Chief Minister Pervez Khattak has expressed dissatisfaction over the pace of construction work on some crucial highways of the province and has asked National Highway Authority (NHA) to guarantee speedy and quality completion of these development schemes. Similarly he asked for speedy anti-encroachment drives to widen the roads fro traffic and beautify the cities. He issued these directives while presiding over two different meetings regarding progress on construction and expansion of different highways, cleanliness, sanitation and beautification of the provincial metropolis at CM Secretariat Peshawar. Besides, Additional Chief Secretary Khalid Pervez, General Manager NHA Abdul Samad, Secretary Communications and Works Ahmad Hanif Orakzai, Administrator MCP Syed Zafar Ali Shah, Chief Executive WSSP Engineer Mohammad Naeem, officials of PaRRSA, PDMA and other concerned authorities attended the meeting. The chief minister said that long delay on construction of roads also affect the national prestige besides tarnishing performance of the department. He said that Chakdara-Kalam Road is in dilapidated condition at various places. He while expressing deep concern over the miserable conditions of the 34-kilometer Bahrain-Kalam section of the road, directed for the acceleration of work and its completion before the beginning of the coming tourism season. He made it clear that this highway is very important for tourism point of view and both provincial and federal governments could not afford any negligence in this regard. He said that domestic and foreign tourists coming here should not get any wrong impression that we are incompetent in bringing improvement in our roads. Pervez Khattak expressed sorrow over the fact that when Malakand-Kalam Road and Malakand-Chitral Road were in the possession of provincial government in the past, the standard of their looking after was far better. But, after the handover of their supervision to NHA in 2007, these vital highways are the victims of the lack of attention. Though, he said the purpose of the decision was bringing further improvement in them while after its washing in the devastated flood of 2010, Bahrain-Kalam Road was totally ignored, which was not suitable in any way. He said that despite limited resources, the provincial government provided a loan of Rs.140 million to NHA for the early completion of the construction of Bahrain-Kalam Road like that of Chamkani Interchange, Northern bypass and other important projects. But, he regretted that despite the passage of one year, the situation is the same, of whose stern action should have been taken at the level of federal government. On this occasion, the authorities of Pakhtunkhwa Highway Authority (PkHA) told the Chief Minister that on his directives the speedy construction of Shamozai Highway from Chakdara to Madiyan on the left side of the River Swat is being completed with speed and out of the total 88-kilometer road 78-kilometer highway has already been made expanded and black-topped through modern machinery. Furthermore, the Kanju, Khawazakhela and Bagh Dheri bridges that were washed away in the floods have also been reconstructed, which has resulted in the diversion of the maximum vehicular traffic to this side. Similarly, he was also informed that the reconstruction of 45-kilometer long Mingora-Fatehpur Road is also being constructed with Saudi Arabian assistance of Rs.3.80 billion in collaboration of NHA. The chief minister directed the continuation of the collaboration and expressed the hope that NHA would fully concentrate on the achievement of its targets in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. During the meeting regarding health and sanitation, drinking water, expansion of roads and resolution of traffic problems in Peshawar, Pervez Khattak asked the municipal corporation (MCP) and WSSP for bringing more improvement in its performances and demolition of encroachments without showing any leniency to any one, expansion of roads and bazaars, timely repairing of tube-wells and immediate redressal of the complaints of the people. He directed the cleansing of Peshawar of encroachments, conversion of all roads inside the city including Circular Road into double-carriage and construction of footpaths on both sides of the roads to give clean and easy passage to pedestrians on them. The Administrator MCP Syed Zafar Ali Shah told that work on dualization of Gulbahar to Lahori Gate, Ramdas to Dabgari roads and other incomplete work on double carriage roads and anti-encroachment operation is being accelerated, which would change the shape of the city and not only roads would become open and expanded, rather the flowers and plants would also become visible on the roads inside the city soon. The chief minister said that after improvement in cleanliness and drinking water situations in Peshawar in next phase the public municipal companies on the pattern of WSSP is being established in Abbottabad and other divisional headquarter cities in the province, which would bear better impacts on the life and environment of the people and people would feel pleasant changes regarding municipal services.
Posted on: Sat, 03 Jan 2015 18:06:15 +0000
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