By Zahiruddin
CHITRAL: The dream of Chitralis to be connected to Chakdara through the road of international standard shattered to the ground as it was reportedly dropped by the federal government costing Rs.17.42 billion guaranteed by the South Korean Exim Bank.
The road had been announced by the previous government of PML-N which was to be completed in three phases out of which one phase from Kalkatak village of Drosh (where the approach road of Lowari tunnel ends) to Chitral city had been allocated in the budget to the National Highway Authority (NHA), the executing agency of the project.
A source in the NHA requesting anonymity confirmed that the road project had been shelved by the new government along with four numbers of road projects and another four numbers of bridges over Chitral River in different valleys of the district.
The source added that the Chitral-Chakdara Road was to be consisted of three phases, the first from Chitral city to Kalkatak, the second from Lowari to Wari in Upper Dir and last one from Wari to Chakdara and it was designed on modern lines conforming to the international standards.
The road was to connect Chitral with the Swat Expressway at Chakdara thereby hooking up the district with Motor Way near in Swabi at Karnel Sher Khan interchanges which reduced the travelling time from the federal capital and Chitral from 10 to 6 hours and from Peshawar, it was to reduce from 8 to 5 hours.
Chitral-Shandur road has also been dropped by the government whose feasibility study and design work had been completed by the NHA and allocation was being awaited from the government for putting it into tendering process.
The former MNA from Chitral Shahzada Iftikharuddin said that the Shandur to Gilgit Road as announced by the former government to make it an alternate route of CPEC will be meaningless if the Chakdara-Chitral and Chitral-Shandur roads are excluded.
He said that Chitral-Chakdara road was of prime importance not only for Chitral but also for the districts of Dir Upper and Dir Lower as well as the adjoining tribal district of Bajaur and Mohmand and its exclusion will hard hit the development process of the region encompassing the Malakand Division.
The former lawmaker reiterated that the absence of road infrastructure was the main hurdle in exploitation of fabulous potentials of micro-hydro power generation, tourism and exploration and transportation of mines and minerals.
The former government had approved three road projects in the district excluding the Chitral-Chakdara road which were Chitral-Shandur Road (157 kms) costing Rs. 16 bn, Garam Chashma road (67 kms) costing Rs. 8 billion and Kalash valleys road costing 4.2 billion.
Similarly, the cemented suspension bridges at four different sites of Chitral including Kuragh and Nishko of Upper Chitral and Shoghore and Osiak Drosh of lower Chitral had also been included in the Public Sector Development Project (PSDP) of the federal government while the bridges at the sites had been washed away by the flash floods in 2015 and the people were suffering worst.
