Karachi-Lahore Motorway project: government to buy land under separate PC-I

[Salman]

Karachi-Lahore Motorway project: government to buy land under separate PC-I


The government would acquire land for the entire Karachi-Lahore Motorway (KLM) project under a separate PC-I at an estimated cost of Rs 60.6 billion, which would be in addition to Rs 259 billion recently approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), it was learnt.

Sources told Business Recorder that the land acquisition, compensation and shifting of utilities and other related works would be approved for the project through a separate PC-I. They added that Karachi-Multan-Lahore Motorway had been planned as a 6-lane highway through major cities of Hyderabad, Sukkur, and Multan. However, initially the Sukkur-Multan stretch measuring 387 km will be taken up, which is an early harvest project under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) initiative on credit financing basis 90:10 with a 90 percent foreign exchange component and 10 per cent local. The credit financing would be provided by the government of China under the CPEC. The project sponsored by the Ministry of Communications would be executed by National Highway Authority (NHA).

Sources further stated that the EXIM bank requires a feasibility study, the PC-I approval, initiation of land acquisition process and an Environmental Impact Assessment report on the project as a prerequisite to initiation of the loan negotiations. The NHA is pursuing completion of these formalities in order to initiate loan negotiations with Exim Bank.

The ECNEC was told that the government has taken an initiative for the expansion of highway and motorway networks from North to South with east-west expansion of commercial hubs partly in collaboration with the government of China under the CPEC concept on Built, Operate & Transfer (BOT) basis. The government has allocated Rs 5.5 billion in Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2014-15 including a foreign exchange component of Rs 5 billion. The project was considered and approved by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on June 5, 2014 and recommended for the consideration of ECNEC. A meeting chaired by Secretary Planning and Reforms was held on June 16, 2014 to finalise the rationalised cost, which after detailed deliberations, was rationalised from Rs 276 billion to Rs 259 billion.

Sources said that the rationalised cost was proposed to the ECNEC for approval subject to some recommendations - one of these being that the NHA would develop proper project monitoring and evaluation cell for effective co-ordination among all the construction packages of proposed motorway followed by proper monitoring to achieve targeted output.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2014