KARACHI: Lasbela Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Ismail Suttar demanded that the National Highway Authority (NHA) complete the dual-carriageway on Northern Bypass to ease the heavy industrial and commercial traffic.
In an SOS to the NHA chairman, Ismail said that the problems being faced by the people and heavy industrial traffic of Karachi and Hub, while travelling to Hub from Karachi and back due to the single carriageway on Karachi Northern Bypass (KNB) incurring frequent fatal accidents and severe traffic blockade due to following reasons: city of Hub in Lasbela District of Balochistan is an industrial city having large number of industries generating a major portion of revenue collected in Balochistan. As a part of this industrial activity, hundreds of containers and other vehicles ply on daily basis on KNBP linking both sides.
After commissioning of the Gwadar Port, the traffic of heavy vehicles has increased considerably on this road thus exerting much pressure on the same. The revival of ship-breaking industry, the ship-breaking traffic of heavy trucks have also exerted heavy load on this road linking this region with Karachi, due to the increase of economic activities which is ever increasing day by day, the volume of the private and public transport have also increased tremendously and the ongoing progress on the CPEC the importance of this area is increasing day by day due to its being the gateway for the Gwadar Port and also due to the proximity of International ports of Karachi.
As a result of the reasons mentioned above, frequently the traffic jams and blockade occur at this road posing great dangers of fatal accidents on KNBP starting from Shershah to Hub that may trigger severe public unrest anytime. In order to resolve this problem and to overcome the difficulties of the people as well as the business community of Lasbela and Gwadar it has now become necessary to avoid further delay in the construction of dual carriageway of KNBP that was said to be principally approved but unfortunately delay for some reason on the other. He demanded of the NHA chief to issue necessary instructions to the competent authorities to release the funds for construction of dual carriageway on KNBP in order to resolve the problems of the people of this region and to create incentive for industrial and commercial investments.
