People threaten to remove toll plaza if projects not launched

MANSEHRA: Traders have threatened to launch an agitation to forcibly remove the toll tax plaza installed in Katain-da-Galla area one year ago if National Highway Authority does not launch Rs1.2 billion worth of development projects meant to address traffic issues in the district before November 20.

“Civil society, transporters and traders have conditionally allowed toll tax collection because the National Highway Authority was to build underpasses and overhead bridges, besides repairing main arteries, but these projects could not take place,” Malik Shakeel Awan, the president of the traders’ union, told reporters here on Wednesday.

Flanked by traders’ union chairman Shahid Maqbool, vice-president Junaid Khan and others, he said that when Mansehra traders, lawyers, civil society, ulema and transporters had opposed toll tax collection at Karakoram Highway in Katain-da-Galla here, the NHA had submitted a memorandum of understanding with Peshawar High Court’s Abbottabad bench that it would spend over Rs1.2 billion to address the traffic problems. “More than one year has passed since the NHA has been collecting toll tax here, but it didn’t launch even one of the promised development projects,” said Awan. Speaking on the occasion, Shahid Maqbool said that though traffic wardens are striving hard to maintain the traffic flow at KKH and other main arteries built almost 40 years ago, even then traffic issues were still there.