KOHAT: The 80 per cent completed strip of Kohat-Hangu highway project constructed for the transportation of Afghan transit trade goods with a cost of Rs1.2 billion is being damaged due to absence of weighing machine and overloaded 22 wheelers plying on it.

The left side of the dual road from Kohat to Hangu was being affected and had settled down because it was used by overloaded vehicles carrying goods to Afghanistan. The right side was intact because the vehicles from Afghanistan came empty.

When contacted, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Highway Authority project director Engineer Shakir Pervez said that the basic problem was the unchecked overloaded traffic at N-55 Indus Highway and N-80 Rawalpindi Highway due to alleged corruption where weighing machines existed, but the staff allowed 120 tons vehicles to pass after taking bribe. He said that the allowed weight on the Kohat-Hangu Highway and Parachinar highway was 58.8 tons. He explained that the vehicles from Karachi port and Punjab used Hangu-Parachinar highway which was causing damage to the road.

He said that the whole 190km Kohat-Parachinar road was being affected badly. He said that he had written to the department several times for installation of weighing machine which was being delayed for unknown reasons. It was also delayed because the local administration of Kohat did not allow it at selected site of Nasratkhel for four years.

“We have now shifted the site to Raisan area and hope that after arrival of the machine the overloaded vehicles will be checked and not allowed to use the new highway at which patchwork has been done several times,” he said.

He recalled that work on Kohat-Hangu highway started in 2015 and at that time its cost was calculated at Rs700 million which had been revised upward due to delay and escalation of cost of labour and machinery.

ROAD MISHAP: A student of Kohat University of Science and Technology died while one person was injured when two motorcycles collided here on Thursday.

The deceased, Mehran Ahmed Afridi, was the son of deputy director of regional information office, Kohat, Irshad Afridi and was an MA student. The injured, Abdul Samad, was admitted to the KDA hospital and FIR had been registered against him in Jarma police station.

Funeral of the student was held in Sheraki area of Darra Adamkhel which was attended by government officials, mediapersons and a large number of area people.

Published in Dawn, January 4th, 2019