ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on Thursday approved four major road projects worth Rs290 billion in Sindh, Balochistan and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.

The Ecnec meeting presided over by Adviser to the Prime Minister on Finance and Revenue Dr Abdul Hafeez Shaikh gave a go-ahead to the construction of the 306-kilometre-long Hyderabad-Sukkur Motor-way at a cost of Rs165.67bn. The project to be completed on the Build-Operate-Transfer basis envisages and involves a six-lane, access-controlled highway.

The motorway is proposed to be a high-speed toll road facility for efficient and safe transportation, which will start from Hyderabad (End of Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway M-9) and terminate at Naro Canal (Start of Sukkur-Multan Motorway M-5).

It passes through Jam-shoro, Tando Adam, Hala, Shahdadpur, Nawabshah, Moro, Dadu, Naushahro Feroze, Mehrab­pur, Rasool-pur, Larkana, Khairpur and Sukkur.

The project is already included in the public-private partnership mode under which a private party will finance its construction, operate it for a defined concession period and transfer it back to the National Highway Authority at no cost at the end of concession period of 25 years. The M-6 project is estimated to take 33 months to complete.

Ecnec also approved construction of 47.55km Khyber Pass Economic Corridor project at a cost of Rs77.9bn, construction of 146km Hoshab-Awaran-Khuzdar Section of M-8 project worth Rs26bn and land acquisition for Swat Motorway Phase-II at a cost of Rs20bn.

The corridor project consists of two components inv­o­lving construction of Peshawar-Torkham Motor­way and link road connecting motorway to Badabher (N-55) intersecting N-5 bet­ween Chamkani and Jhagra (55km) in length. It envisages construction of 47.55-kilometre-long, four-lane wide, dual carriageway high-speed access controlled motorway from Peshawar to Torkham.

The Peshawar-Torkham Motorway is part of the Peshawar-Jalalabad-Kabul Motorway Project. The scope of work includes construction of bridges, interchanges, flyovers, subways, underpasses, box culverts, cattle creep, road furniture, drainage works, and retaining walls along with allied facilities. The project was envisaged on the basis of a loan programme offered by the World Bank.

The Hoshab-Awaran-Khuzdar Section of M-8 Project envisages construction of 146km road from Hoshab to Awaran at a cost of Rs26bn. At present, there exists motorable track from Hoshab to Awaran under administrative control of communication and works department of the Balochistan government. The existing route is mostly followed while finalising the alignment.

The road starts from Hoshab and traverses through Qila Darwesh, Ashal, Dandar, Sahar Kalat, Gorari, Laljan, Duddar, Razai, Nurdin, Madak, Malar, Labach Dargo and finally terminates at Awaran. The scope of works includes relocation of utilities and acquisition of 29,200 kanals of land for 100m of Right of Way.

The Swat Motorway Phase-II project envisages acquisition of 10,000 kanals of land for construction of four-lane motorway of 79.69km length from Chakdara to Fatehpur as Phase-II — extension of the Swat Motorway. The motorway is proposed as a high-speed toll road facility for efficient and safe transportation. The Right of Way proposed for the motorway is 50m.

Published in Dawn, July 17th, 2020