Aleem Khan blames Punjab, KP govts for delays in highway projects

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Communication Abdul Aleem Khan criticized the provincial governments for the delay in completion of certain highways on Friday.

Chairing a review meeting of National Highway Authority (NHA), the Minister made a clear mandate for early completion of important infrastructure, indicating that federal government would now take the matter into its hands in case provincial administrations failed to fulfill their duties.

The minister expressed his dissatisfaction formally about the progress of the projects in which the Punjab and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa governments are involved, saying that any further delay could not be accepted since the delay was hampering many crucial projects.

The Minister said that the NHA has taken a decision of completing the Peshawar Northern Bypass, if the provincial government did not provide funds for this project in time despite a five-month delay.

He added that since the Punjab government could not deliver its committed amount for the Rawalpindi-Kahuta project, the Minister instructed the NHA to take charge of completing those transit corridors.

Alongside these administrative directives, the minister ordered the expansion of the motorway network, directing that the Lahore-Sialkot Motorway be widened from four to six lanes and that the Sialkot-Kharian and Kharian-Rawalpindi sections be built as six-lane motorways.