ISLAMABAD: Finally, the once much-discussed western corridor motorway is expected to be completed and become operational by June this year after a delay of 30 months. The road will run between the Hakla Interchange on the M-1 motorway in Fatehjang and Yarak near Dera Ismail Khan. The motorway will serve the more backward southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) as well as the more remote north-western districts of Punjab and eventually connect to the proposed Yarak-Zhob-Quetta motorway.
More than 80 percent of work on the 292.50km-long four-lane motorway -- with 12 interchanges and costing Rs122 billion --has been completed, an official document in the possession of The News shows.
The document spells out the details of the progress of work on the project, which had been divided into five packages for speedy completion.
The motorway -- which is not part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) though it is often wrongly included in it -- was conceived by the previous government. It is financed by the Pakistan government and not China as part of CPEC. In 2016, the then prime minister had convened an all-parties’ conference on the demand and had announced this western corridor. Work on the motorway had become sluggish after the present government came to power following the 2018 general elections. The construction, starting in 2016 and 2017, was to conclude by the end of 2018, according to the original schedule. However, of late work on the project has accelerated, and an additional sum of Rs6bn has been allocated over and above the Rs20bn earmarked in the Public Sector Development Programme of the last federal budget, an official said.
The document says part of package one spread between Yarik (Dera Ismail Khan) and Rehmani Khel -- having a length of 54.6 km -- is 95.25pc complete, and the rest of the construction will end during the current month. The work was inaugurated in September 2016. The second part of the same package spanning 25.4km is 92.40pc complete while the remaining work will finish during the current month. Work on it had kicked off in July 2017.
The second package extends from Rehmani Khel to Kot Balian. Its first part comprising 25.8km, which began in July 2017, is 94.8pc complete and is expected to finish in the ongoing month. Its second portion, comprising 6.5km, which commenced in November 2017, will be completed in June this year. Its third 13.5 km stretch, which began in November 2017, has been completed.
The third package running between Mianwali and Tarap is 52.5km. It was started in October, 2016 and will be completed during the present month. Work on it is 91.20pc complete. The fourth package, which covers the area between Tarap and Pindigheb, comprises 51.2km. Work on it started in Noveber, 2016 and will finish in the current month. The fifth package between Pindigheb and Hakla is 64km in length. It will be completed in May this year. Work on this stretch started in January, 2017.
The motorway will reduce travel time between Dera Ismail Khan and Islamabad to two-and-a-half hours from the present five hours or more. The second part of the western corridor-- Yarak-Zhob-Quetta -- is 540km long and will bring down the distance from Islamabad to Quetta to only 830 km and reduce travel time to eight hours.
It is perhaps a mere coincidence that the two areas which will be major beneficiaries of this mega project are the constituencies of arch-rivals Prime Minister Imran Khan in Mianwali and Maulana Fazlur Rehman in Dera Ismail Khan.