Daily Times

Sir: It is quite good to note that Prime Minister Shahid Khaqan Abbasi is currently undertaking a whirlwind tour of the country and performing inaugurations and ground breaking ceremonies of various development projects. He is doing this almost on a daily basis.

Only the other day, the prime minister inaugurated the Faisalabad International Airport expansion project and performed a ground breaking ceremony of a bridge on the Indus river. The bridge will connect Bhakkar (Punjab) and Dera Ismail Khan (Khyber Pukhtunkhwah). According to reports in the media, expansion of International Airport in Faisalabad has increased the number of facilitation counters and handling capacity of domestic and international passengers. The CAA has completed the project, which has more than doubled the covered area of the airport from 36 thousand to 73 thousand square feet and now the handling capacity of local and foreign passengers has also substantially increased. 16 new facilitation counters have also been established for international and domestic travelers as well. And the bridge of river Indus establishing a new road link between the two provinces at a cost of Rs 7 billion, fully funded by the federal government, will facilitate transportation of agricultural produce and other goods. It is quite appreciable that the bridge will link the Kallurkot area of Bhakkar and Dhaki area of Dera Ismail Khan reducing the distance from 80 kilometers to just 15 kilometers. According to engineers the life of the bridge is expected to be about 100 years and it is scheduled to be completed in about 18 months. More importantly, it is also commendable to point out that the bridge being constructed is a part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC). It will later be linked with the Dera Ismail Khan-Islamabad motorway which will greatly facilitate the people of the two provinces.

MUHAMMAD MURTAZA ZEESHAN

Lahore

Published in Daily Times, January 22^nd 2018.