Punjab government will spend an amount of Rs 14 billion to expand the existing road network in the province during current fiscal 2006-07. The said amount will be utilised by district governments, official sources said, adding the government had embarked upon a strong road infrastructure developing plan focusing both on inter-city express ways and intra-city road network.
The main Sialkot-Lahore Motorway project, to be completed this financial year, would reduce the travel time between Lahore and Sialkot to 45 minutes.
Linkages would be provided to this Motorway from Gujrat, Wazirabad and Gujranwala to extend the benefits of this motorway to a large regional population. The said motorway would be connected to the Lahore Ring Road project, which has already been initiated by the government.
In Punjab, sources said, the communication by road was the predominant mode of transport. It carries more than 90 percent of the passengers and freight traffic with an average growth rate of 4.5 percent and 10.5 percent respectively.
In 2002, the Punjab's roads network was 40,000 kilometres, which increased to 67,000 kilometres by end 2005. Since 2003-04 the expenditure on road sector in the Punjab has been in excess to Rs 30 billion, benefiting the entire population of the province and creating project related temporary jobs in excess of 800,000.
To maintain the present tempo of infrastructure development, sources said, Rs 14,000 million would be used in running fiscal under the Medium Term Development Framework (MTDF).
The main features of government's road sector development policy are to sustain and promote economic activities, provide province wide north-south and east-west corridors linking national motorways to address emerging national and international travel and trade demands.
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