Daily Times

LAHORE: Pakistan Muslim League (PML) leader and former deputy premier Chaudhry Parvez Elahi has said that the project for construction of six-lane Lahore-Sialkot Motorway was initially planned by his government in 2006 at a cost of Rs 23 billion, but Shahbaz Sharif stopped the project and was now completing it at a cost of Rs 43.85 billion.

According to a press release issued from the party’s head office on Tuesday, Elahi said this while talking to media persons in Gujrat. He said that the present rulers stopped the projects initiated by PML and after making some changes here and there restarted them at a much higher cost only to put up plaques of their names.

“Work on the construction of Lahore-Sialkot Motorway started in 2007 after a formal inauguration. This motorway was to start from Sambrial on Sialkot- Wazirabad Road to Lahore,” he recalled. “This project would have been connected with Gujrat through the construction of a bridge on River Chenab near Shehbazpur.”

He said that the project also included establishment of three industrial zones with the cooperation of China and setting up of two international technical universities with the help of Sweden and Austria. However, he added, due to stoppage of the project on the excuse of non-availability of funds, both these universities went to India whereas 60,000 people were denied opportunity of new employment.

Elahi said National Highway Authority (NHA) had named the project as ‘M-2’ whereas it was also known as the Industrial Highway, besides Lahore-Sialkot Motorway. He elaborated that the project included construction of eight flyovers, 40 bridges and 70 underpasses and would have included Sheikhupura, Daska, Narowal, Pasrur, Zafarwal, Chowinda and Wazirabad besides Sialkot and Gujrat. He said completion of this motorway would have reduced travelling distance between Sialkot and Lahore to only 45 minutes but owing to their enmity towards Gujrat, the present rulers denied this facility to people of Sialkot, Sheikhupura, Narowal and Gujranwala districts for seven years, causing a big loss to the provincial and national economy.

Elahi on the occasion also showed clippings of newspapers of April 2007 in which news regarding Sialkot-Lahore Motorway inauguration was published.