Islamabad:
The Center and the Sindh on Saturday came face to face on the very detained Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway project as well as the reconstruction of the Karachi-Hyderabad motorway, the second accusing the first to drag their feet with regard to development projects in the province.
Addressing his post-budget press conference in Karachi on Saturday, the Sindh chief minister Murad Ali Shah, said: “Sindh is not a colony of the Federation because the province does not obtain its full part of the center”.
By setting up a long list of complaints against the center, the chief minister said that the first billion rupees had been allocated to the Hyderabad-Sukkur motorway and that the allowance has now been reduced to 15 billion rupees. “If the trend persists, this project will not be finished even in the next 12 years.”
Commenting on the comments of the chief minister, the Federal Minister for Communications, Abdul Aleem Khan, expressed that the federal minister, he assumes the responsibility of last year, but does not want to comment on the inaction of the previous governments concerning the construction of the Sukkur, Hyderabad and Karachi motorways.
He said that the construction of Karachi-Hyderabad-Sukkur motorways would begin this year and added that the Islamic Development Bank has expressed its desire to finance the project, while the final decision concerning loan approval is expected in September after its council meeting, said a press release issued here.
He stressed the importance of the company to connect the port of Karachi to the National Outorway Network, saying that without this connection, the usefulness of the motorway for import, export and business would be of no use.
He stressed that different political parties, including the PPP, remained in power, but unfortunately, several years have been wasted due to the inability to initiate these critical infrastructure projects such as Karachi-Hyderabad-Sukkur motorways.
Abdul Aleem Khan reaffirmed the federal government’s commitment to build not only the Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway, but also the Hyderabad-Karachi section, while the objective is to finish the entire route in the two years.
