Karachi: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday laid the foundation stone for the Karachi-Lahore Motorway (M9) that would connect this southern port city with the northern parts of the country.
The first phase of the mega project is expected to be completed in two-and-a-half years and cost 36 billion rupees (Dh1.2 billion).
At the brief inaugural ceremony, Sharif said that it was his earnest desire to begin the work on the motorway project.
In the first phase, the Karachi-to-Hyderabad section would be completed within two-and-half years and then work would begin on the Hyderabad-to-Sukkur section of the grand road.
The length of the road will be more than 1,100 kilometres once complete.
The prime minister said that the government was trying to shore up the resources for the next phases of the eight-lane motorway so that faster communication means could help the country enter the next development phase.
He also mentioned the work on the other roads, which were being constructed in the Hazara division of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.
Sharif said that work on Khunjerab-to-Gwadar road was being carried out and it would be part of the Pakistan-China corridor.
He vowed to set up a network of motorways all over the country so that all the provinces could be interconnected, with a faster means of travelling between them.
The construction of M9 has been awarded to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for the next 25 years on built-operate-transfer basis.
According to the contract agreement, the existing four-lane Karachi-Hyderabad Super Highway would be converted into six-lane 9M meeting international standards.
The project is being on public-private partnership basis and this would be the second-largest project in the country to be built on such basis.
FWO would pay 143 billion rupees to the state-run National Highway Authority (NHA) and another share of 109 billion rupees as tax to the government of Pakistan.
