Daily Times

A 120-year-old small bridge on main Karakoram Highway (KKH) at Fawara Chowk has been badly damaged, and traffic police have diverted the traffic to the inner lane of the main road from Fawara Chowk passing from the General Bus Stand.

NHA officials on the pressing demand of the traffic police and keeping in mind the importance of the main road on the CPEC route have started repair work and officials present at the site told reporters that it will take a month to complete the repair work.

SP Traffic Warden Tariq Mahmood Khan along with NHA officials said that the bridge which was catering the needs of at least six districts of Hazara and northern areas, heavy loaded vehicles of CPEC, goods transport and public transport vehicles with inner-city traffic was using the bridge as a road link and condition of the bridge was worsening day by day and chances of major the disaster was there for which on the complaints of the general public and traffic police, repair work is being started on Saturday.

In a further complaint lodged with the administration was the removal of encroachment of the adjacent areas of the bridge on which action from district administration is awaited.

Qazi Muhammad Azhar Advocate, Chairman Hazara Qumi Mahaz has strongly criticized the line department for their negligence to remove the illegal encroachments and valuable land from land grabbers especially adjacent to the main KKH in the Abbottabad area.

Director of National High Ways Authority Hazara Region Akhunzada Khan Wazir, Deputy Director Syed Kamal Hussain Shah, contractor Mujahid told that on war foot basis work is being started and old materials of the damaged bridge are removed and will be done day and night to repair the work on the bridge and will be re-open for all sort of heavy traffic as heavily loaded vehicles of the CPEC also use this route in addition to Abbottabad bypass.