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August 26th, 2016
‘Game-changing’ Swat Motorway inaugurated
PESHAWAR: The Swat Motorway project was inaugurated by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak on Thursday. It is the first major road of this nature being constructed by a provincial government.
The CM laid the groundwork for the project at the Swabi and Chakdara portions of the motorway and inaugurated the project at Colonel Sher Khan Interchange.
The Pakistan Army’s construction wing, the Frontier Works Organization (FWO), was handed the project under a public-private partnership. The project, costing Rs 40 billion, will be completed by December 2017 and will be a four-lane motorway which can be extended to six lanes in future.
The 81-kilometre road starts from Colonel Sher Khan Interchange on the M-1 and passes through Swabi and Mardan to end in Chakdara.
Two kilometres of the motorway will pass through Nowshera, 18 kilometres through Swabi, 40 kilometres through Mardan and 21 kilometres through Malakand. The road will be 80 metres wide and will reduce a three-hour travel time to just 45 minutes.
The motorway will have a two-kilometre-long tunnel at the Ala Dhand and Palai areas, while interchanges will exist at Dhobian, Ismaila, Bakhshalay, Katlang, Palai and Chakdara.
The chief minister, while addressing the inauguration ceremony in Swabi, said that the government had already purchased land worth Rs 5 billion for the project in 2015 and construction would cost Rs 35 billion.
