ISLAMABAD:The National Highway Authority (NHA) has been working on the dualization and up-gradation of 83 kilometer Old Bannu Road in Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province which is nearing completion.
An official of NHA told reporter on Friday that the project was part of Indus Highway and the first package of the project, 40 kilometer Domail-Khurrum portion was awarded to the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) at the bid price of Rs 7.132 billion.
The work on the project was started in February 2018 and so far, about 68.75 percent of physical progress has been achieved mainly due to lack of funds availability, the official added.
He said its second package, the 35 km Khurram-Karpa portion costing Rs 5.927 billion was awarded to the FWO. Its work was started in February 2018 and so far about 67.15 percent of physical progress has been achieved.
The third package of Old Bannu road, 8 kilometer Gaandi Chowk-Sarai Naurang section was awarded to M/s NCC-IKAN-HRPL joint venture at the bid price of Rs 0.718 billion. Work on the package also started in February 2018 and it has already been accomplished. He further said that the existing road was single carriageway which was being dualized and improved. He said the project would provide the heavy traffic movement on Indus Highway (N-55) with an alternate route thus sharing the traffic burden with Indus Highway.
The NHA official said that infrastructure development in the less developed areas would contribute to their economic uplift through accelerated trade activities.
Indus Highway is 1,264 km long that runs along the Indus River connecting the port city of Karachi with Kohat and Peshawar via D.G.Khan and D.I.Khan. The highway being the second largest road connection after Grand Trunk Road, provides an alternate north-south link while traversing 491 km in Sindh, 360 km in Punjab and 396 km in KPK by connecting Rajanpur, D.G.Khan, D.I.Khan, Bannu, Kohat and Peshawar.