National Highway Authority approves important projects across country

[Naveed Yaseen]

Islamabad: The Executive Board of the National Highway Authority in a meeting on Wednesday approved several important construction projects. According to a press release, the meeting was held with NHA Chairman Altaf Ahmed Chaudhry in the chair.

The board gave its approval for award of consultancy contract for contract supervision of Larkana-Naudero-Lakhi road. The project includes construction of 61-km long highway and is part of government’s Sindh Development Package. The meeting was informed that the project would cost around Rs1.925 billion and has already been cleared by the ECNEC. The meeting was informed that the existing road is narrow and in a very bad shape. NHA plans to widen and upgrade the road according to the international standards. It would also include construction of 112 small bridges and one major bridge over Sim River. The project will connect the district of Shikarpur with the Indus Highway and will immensely facilitate the movement of both the freight and commercial traffic between Indus highway and N-65.

The meeting also gave approval to award of maintenance contract of KKH and Gilgit-Skardu Road to FWO. Speaking on the occasion, the NHA chairman said that efforts were being made to invite foreign construction firms to invest in road infrastructure in Pakistan. He said that negotiations had been held with Malaysian firms for the construction of Shahdara Flyover on BOT annuity basis. He said that the firm had shown its willingness and another round of talks would be held soon to finalize the proposal.

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