CHAKWAL: The recent meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec), which approved 12 mega projects worth Rs440 billion, left people of Chakwal shocked after it dropped the Chakwal-Sohawa Road project that had been launched by the former prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, along with Mandra-Chakwal Road project.

Ironically on June 16, Pakistan Public Works Department (Pak-PWD) awarded contract of dualisation of 64km Mandra-Chakwal Road at the cost of Rs4.22 billion and 70km Chakwal-Sohawa Road at the cost of Rs4.34billion to the National Logistic Cell (NLC).

The NLC was supposed to start work on the two road projects within days but in its meeting on July 3, Ecnec did not approve Chakwal-Sohawa Road and only consented to Mandra-Chakwal Road at a revised cost of Rs4.671 billion.

Annoyed at this, people staged a protest on Sunday at Mulhal Mughlan village located on Chakwal-Sohawa Road. The protesters blocked the road and staged a sit-in.

They carried placards and chanted slogans against the PML-N government and its local MPs.

They said the cancellation of Chakwal-Sohawa Road was injustice with thousands of the people of the area.

“Where are the Rs3.3 billion funds which were released to NLC for this road,” the protesters asked.

They said the PML-N had bagged record votes from this area but the party had stabbed them in the back by not meeting their prime demand.

They warned that if work on the road was not started within 10 days, they would stage sit-ins in front of the PML-N MPs.

Talking to Dawn, PML-N’s major rival in Chakwal former district nazim Sardar Ghulam Abbas said his group would soon protest over the cancellation of Chakwal-Sohawa Road.

“Funds for these two roads had already been released by the previous government and the present government had not been able to use these funds for any other purpose,” he said, adding that cancellation of Chakwal-Sohawa Road was sheer injustice with the people of the area.

When contacted, PML-N MNA retired Maj Tahir Iqbal said Chakwal-Sohawa Road project would be approved in the next meeting of Ecnec.

“The project has not been cancelled and work on Chakwal-Sohawa Road would be started in the second phase,” he claimed.

Published in Dawn, July 7th, 2014