LANDI KOTAL: The Ali Masjid portion of the historic Khyber Pass has become the proverbial hard nut for Frontier Works Organisation as the company has delayed for the third time the completion of the much awaited 45 kilometres Peshawar-Torkham Highway.

Without conceding that FWO had miscalculated the nature of rock structure in the area, its officials insisted that the company workers were taking extreme care in smashing the hard rock so that no damage was caused to the nearby buildings which also included the historic Ali Masjid Fort.

The company had started rock cutting and expansion of the approximately one and a half kilometre portion of the road in Ali Masjid area in October last year and it has yet to complete the daunting task despite the lapse of nearly seven months.

“We are stuck at the last corner of the narrow portion at Ali Masjid. The rock cutting would be completed in a week time after which we will start levelling of the road and then laying of the concrete base,” FWO spokesperson Major Haseenullah told Dawn.

He said that one of the two bridges at Wali Khel locality would also be completed by the end of May while the other would take a couple of more months before its opening to regular traffic.

The delay in the completion of the road has already earned FWO criticism from local transporters and businessmen but abandoning of eight out of the total 14 bridges has caused much damage to the reputation of the company.

FWO officials insisted that paucity of funds forced them to slash the number of bridges but its critics alleged that financial managers of the company miscalculated both the total amount to be spent on the project and the exact time of its completion.

In the beginning of the $700 million project, FWO had pledged to complete the expansion and repair of the road within 18 months. The date was later extended to December 2014 and then to March 2015 but now it has been extended to August this year. The ground breaking ceremony was performed by the then president Asif Ali Zardari in November 2012.

Mr Haseenullah said that the 35-kilometre section of the road from Jamrud to Landi Kotal would be completed by the end of June at all costs while the rest of the 10-kilometre portion up to Torkham border would take two more months.

FWO had earlier pledged that it would not compromise at any cost on the 42 feet width of the road but the company had to eat its words when Frontier Corps refused to allow it to demolish its structure in Ali Masjid near the natural spring for road expansion.

Wajid Ali Shinwari, an electronics dealer at Karkhano Market in Peshawar, said that he and hundreds of other local people, who used the road regularly, had no faith in the repeated pledges by FWO about the road completion.

He said that he travelled daily from Landi Kotal to Karkhano Market and had to wait for several hours at either Ali Masjid or Wali Khel owing to snail’s pace work on the road.

EXPLOSIVES: The authorities on Wednesday recovered a huge cache of explosives from a truck at Torkham border, however, the driver of the vehicle managed to escape.

Political Naib Tehsildar Irshad Mohmand said that khasadars during routine checking recovered a huge cache of explosives from the truck, which was carrying cement bags to Afghanistan. He said that they recovered 720 pieces of detonators, 110 kilograms potassium and hundreds of metres of electric wire. He said that the seized items were concealed in cement bags.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2015

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