Govt urged to complete road project

MANSEHRA: The political parties and former local government representatives have demanded the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government to complete the blacktopping of Oghi-Battal road as the work on the Rs220 million development project is suspended for the last four months.

“The execution of this main artery, which links Oghi tehsil with Karakoram Highway and Hazara Motorway at Battal area, was scheduled to be completed in mid this year but the contractor left it abandoned after completing hardly a 20 percent work,” Hafiz Noman Usmani, the Jamiat ulema-i-Islam-Fazl’s district deputy general secretary told a joint presser in Oghi on Friday.

Flanked by the Pakistan Peoples party’s district general secretary Anwar Saeed Khan and former councillor Mohammad Anwar, he said that MPA Nawabzada Fareed, who is also the chairman district development advisory committee, had laid the foundation of the 17km road to link Oghi tehsil, Tanawal and others areas with KKH and Hazara Motorway but work on that project was suspend by the contractor.

“We want to make it clear to the government that people of a widely stretched area have been suffering the brunt of the delay in the completion of this major artery. And if the contractor doesn’t resume work, we would come onto the streets to protest against it,” he said.

Anwar Saeed Khan said that people were fed up with the situation on the ground and would move the National Accountability Bureau against the anomalies in this road project.