ISLAMABAD:The dualization and up-gradation project of 83-kilometer Old Bannu Road divided into three packages in the Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa is being carried out by National Highway Authority (NHA).
An official of NHA told reporter on Wednesday that the first package of the project, the 40-kilometer Domail-Khurrum portion was awarded to the Frontier Works Organization (FWO) at the bid price of Rs 7.132 billion. Its work started in May 2018 and so far about 61 percent of physical progress has been achieved, the official added.
He said its second package the 35 km Khurram-Krapa portion costing Rs 5.927 billion was awarded to the FWO. Its work started in February 2018 and so far about 58 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 May 2018 and 100 percent progress on the project has already been accomplished. He further said that the existing road was a single-carriageway that 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. He said that all three packages of the project were supposed to be finished by end of October 2021 but due to lack of availability of funds they were lingering on.
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 is the second largest road connection after Grand Trunk Road and provides an alternate north-south link while traversing 491 km in Sindh, 360 km in Punjab, and 396 km in KPK, and connecting Rajanpur, D.G.Khan, D.I.Khan, Bannu, Kohat, and Peshawar.