By Staff Reporter
ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) on Wednesday approved various infrastructure projects costing Rs395.8 billion, including the Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway, a statement said on Wednesday.
Federal Minister for Finance and Revenue Miftah Ismail chaired the ECNEC meeting.
ECNEC approved the Hyderabad–Sukkur Motorway on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis with revised cost of Rs308.194 billion, with government share of Rs10.3 billion (Rs9.500 billion as Capital VGF, Rs300 million as NHA establishment charges, and Rs500 million as contingencies). The project to be executed by National Highway Authority (NHA) envisages construction of 306Km long, 6–lane wide, divided, and fenced motorway between the two cities. The approval of the project is subject to fulfilment of all codal formalities and approval of legislation from the National Assembly.
Approval was accorded to the construction of Lahore-Sialkot Motorway (LSM) 4-lane link highway connecting LSM to Narang Mandi, Kartarpur, and Narowal including Narowal Eastern Bypass at a revised rationalised cost of Rs17.379 billion. The revised project envisages rehabilitation, dualisation and construction of 73kms long 4-lane dual carriageway, connecting Kartarpur with Lahore-Sialkot Motorway and Nankana. The project is to be completed in three years.
The committee also passed Punjab Urban Lane Systems Enhancement Project (PULSE) at a cost of Rs25.500 billion with FEC of Rs1.378 billion. The project is to be executed by Board of Revenue (BoR) through Punjab Land Records Authority (PLRA) and Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) to develop cadastral mapping including digital land records of urban, peri-urban and rural areas of entire Punjab. The project will be carried out through a 100 percent loan by the World Bank in 60 months.
ECNEC also gave a green-signal project to the construction of Northern Section of Ring Road (Missing Link), from Warsak road to Nasir Bagh road at a cost of Rs16.489.198 billion and fully funded and executed by the Government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
Under the project a 6-lane road with a total length of 8.7kmwill be completed in three years. The ECNEC observed that projects fully funded by provinces with no foreign funding may be exempted from consideration by CDWP and ECNEC.
Another project that got ECNEC nod was the construction of Mangi Dam in Balochistan at a cost of Rs13.247 billion located about 60km east of Quetta city on Khost river. The federal government will bear only 50 percent cost of the originally approved PC-I and an increase in the cost due to up-gradation of power supply grid station & transmission line. Any other increase will be borne by the province from its resources. The 61 meter high concrete gravity dam has a gross reservoir capacity of 36.4 MCM and an annual release of 13.4 MCM. The main objective of the project is to reduce the existing shortfall in the water being faced by Quetta city. The proposed Mangi dam will result in a supply of 8.1mgd to Quetta city.
The committee also passed two projects for Karachi city. One project is Restoration and Revamping of Orangi Nullah at a revised cost of Rs15.007 billion in Orangi Town, Karachi West district and the other is Restoration and Revamping of Gujjar Nullah’ at revised cost of Rs14.854 billion in Karachi Central district. Projects are being sponsored by NDMA and to be completed in 21 months.
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