PESHAWAR:Governor Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Haji Ghulam Ali along with Provincial Minister Sawak Nazir Wednesday inaugurated Detour Road Hayatabad, which is being constructed at a total cost of Rs 1.53 billions besides planting trees and installing street lights on the road for convenience of the local population.
Provincial Ministers Haji Manzoor Afridi, Abdul Halim Kasuria, Hamid Shah, Fazl Elahi, Muhammad Shafiullah, Advisor to Prisons Haji Hidayatullah were also present.
With the construction of Detour Road, the heavy transport will have easy access to Afghanistan, and the local population will also be facilitated in transportation, the governor said.
Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) officials in their briefing about the project said that the two-way Detour Road with a length of three kilometers was completed at a cost of Rs 1.53 billion.
It was told in the briefing that the construction of the road would not only facilitate heavy goods vehicles going to Afghanistan, but the road would also be helpful for commercial traffic.
In the briefing, it was stated that the construction of this road would relieve the local population of Hayatabad from traffic problems.
Terming the construction of Detour Road as a good initiative of the PDA, the governor directed to plant trees on sides of the road.
This would not only increase beauty of the road but also provide a green environment, he added.
He also directed to install street lights on the road for convenience of the local population.
Haji Ghulam Ali said that the construction of the two-lane road consisting of four lanes would ensure that the local population of Hayatabad would not have to suffer from heavy traffic problems.
The governor said: “We all have a common responsibility for the construction and beauty of the roads of Peshawar and I wish that open and paved roads and shade trees are available in every place in Peshawar and for this purpose, I have been taking all possible efforts and steps on my behalf for the last 40 years.”
He said practical steps had been taken to extend the roads of the city.
He said that like in foreign countries, there should be such a system here that one or two trees should be made mandatory for the construction of houses, because trees played a fundamental role in the atmosphere.
The governor said that the caretaker provincial government was providing relief to the people according to its policies and powers.
“I will also like to ask the provincial ministers to take steps immediately to remove any problems related to public roads and highways. The federal government is also taking steps to cooperate with the provincial government,” he said.
Funds of Rs 333 billion will be released by the federation to solve the economic problems of the province while Rs 10 billion out of Rs 20 billion had been released for tribal districts, he added.
The governor regretted that the former provincial government did not demand one rupee of funds from the federal government during the last year and gave the people a wrong idea against the federal government for not releasing funds to the province.
He assured the release of funds to the province including the elected local government representatives of the merged districts.
Apart from this, a meeting was held with the governor regarding other important issues including the closure of tube wells due to the power cut of local government tube wells in Haripur district, in which Provincial Minister Local Government Sawal Nazir Advocate and Provincial Minister Hamid Shah, Haripur, Member of National Assembly Babar Nawaz Khan, former members of Provincial Assembly Raja Faisal Zaman, Qazi Mohammad Asad, Tehsil Chairman Haripur Samiullah Khan, Tehsil Chairman Khanpur Raja Haroon Sikandar and other relevant officials participated.
In the meeting, Tehsil Chairmen of Haripur and Khanpur informed the governor about the public suffering due to the closure of tube-wells of the local government due to nonpayment arrears of Rs 165 million to WAPDA.
They thanked the governor for providing electricity on a temporary basis despite the arrears due to his intervention and asked to ban expenditure.
He told the governor that Tehsil Haripur was completely neglected by the previous government in disbursement of funds due to which it was facing a lot of problems.
On this occasion, the governor assured the Tehsil Chairmen that the funds would be released by talking to the finance department for the payment of electricity arrears.
He said that local body representatives played an important role in resolving problems at the street level, but unfortunately efforts were made to paralyze the local body system.
“I am making serious efforts to restore the powers of the local body representatives so that the powers will be transferred to them very soon,” he added.