Federal Minister for Communications Hafiz Abdul Karim has said that pace of work on under construction Faisalabad-Multan and Abdul Hakeem-Lahore Motorway projects need to be accelerated to ensure their timely completion. He was speaking at briefing session during his visit to the schemes. Chairman NHA Jawwad Rafique Malik, senior officers from Ministry of Communications & National Highway Authority were also present. NHA’s Member (Motorways-South) Mr. Mansoor Ahmed Sirohey gave briefing.

On this occasion Hafiz Abdul Karim said, national highways and motorways play vital role in socio-economic uplift, and our endeavor is to complete road building projects with quality construction. He said all the resources and the latest construction techniques be employed to ensure scheduled completion of Faisalabad-Multan and Lahore-Abdul Hakeem motorway projects.

Chairman NHA Jawwad Rafique Malik asked the engineers and workers engaged on projects to undertake coordinated efforts to overcome the difficulties in way of construction of these schemes. He desired to utilize all the available resources in the best possible manner for timely construction of these projects of economic importance.

During the briefing, it was told that Faisalabad-Multan Motorway is divided into six sections. 58km long Faisalabad-Gojra section has already been completed and opened to traffic. Work on 31Km Gojra-Toba, 30 Km Toba-Shorkot, 31 Km Shorkot-Dinpur, 34Km Dinpur-Khanewal and 55.6Km Khanewal-Multan sections is in progress. It was further told that 47% work has been completed on Gojra-Jamani Package-2A, while 41% progress is achieved on Jamani-Shorkot Package-2B. Work on Shorkot-Dinpur Package-3A and Dinpur-Khanewal Package-3B is in progress.

It was further told that 68.3% work has been completed on 230km long Lahore-Abdul Hakeem motorway which is a head of planned progress. Remaining work will be completed by August 2018. Construction of 8x interchanges, 3x service areas and 3x rest areas is also part of the project. The project will be completed at cost of Rs. 148.6 billion.