CHITRAL, Oct 30: Despite groundbreaking of Chitral city bypass road for three times by as many successive provincial governments people here still apprehend that the project is unlikely to take off as design of the road project awaits approval.

Talking to Dawn here the other day, a number of elites of the city said that although the chief minister had repeated the process of groundbreaking of the project, they were not sure about commencement of work.

They claimed that a tug-of-war was going on between the local MNA and a provincial minister for alignment of the road to pass it through their desired places.

They alleged that the communication and works (C&W) department, the executing agency of the project, had awarded the contract of rock cutting near Chew Bridge before the approval of project design. They said that the design of the road could only be approved once the land owners were compensated.

Former district nazim Maghfirat Shah said that without land acquisition there was no way to launch the project.

An official of the C&W department, when contacted, conceded that the design was yet to be finalised for which the services of a consultant were being hired by the department.

The road project was first inaugurated by the then chief minister Aftab Sherpao in 1996, but without any allocation funds.

For the second time, during the MMA government, the chief minister announced the construction of bypass road during his public address in Chitral.

However, work could not be started on the project as then government had allocated a small amount of Rs1.5 million only against the project cost of Rs250 million.

The present road of Chitral having a very small width is about a hundred year old.

In 1927, when there was only one jeep of the former ruler of Chitral, the road had the same width, said one Juma Khan who had worked in the former state administration.

The influx of non-custom paid vehicles in the city has also worsened the situation and the traffic jam for hours has become a routine, residents complained.

The official sources said that about 90 per cent of the total estimated cost of the project would be paid as land compensation and only 10 percent was requi-red for construction purpose.

Abdul Ghafar, a property dealer, said that the cost of land was on steep rise.

He said that if the project was delayed for another two years the cost of the land could rise four times.

Former tehsil nazim Sartaj Ahmed has called upon the government to take immediate steps for materialising the project, as people of Chitral had suffered a lot.