ISLAMABAD:
Sindh has raised objections to the federal government’s decision to fund a new Rs436 billion Punjab-centric motorway by again ignoring the Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway despite declaring it as a top priority.
The federal government’s decision to fund the Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar motorway is also in violation of the National Fiscal Pact, signed by the federal and four provincial governments as part of the $7 billion International Monetary Fund (IMF) programme. The pact requires the devolution of expenditures in sectors such as higher education, health, social protection and regional public infrastructure to provinces.
Sindh Minister for Local Government, Housing Saeed Ghani raised the objection during a meeting of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) held in the current week. Ecnec approved the Lahore-Sahiwal-Bahawalnagar Motorway at a 65% higher cost of Rs436 billion.
Talking to The Express Tribune, Ghani said that he raised objection to the construction of the new motorway with federal funding as the decision was not justified because work on the 306km Hyderabad-Sukkur motorway could not start because of the lack of funding.
Compared to the 295km Lahore-Bahawalnagar motorway costing Rs436 billion, the cost of 306km Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway is estimated at nearly Rs400 billion.
National Highway Authority (NHA) Chairman Sheheryar Sultan this week told the Senate Standing Committee on Planning that the government was in discussions with various creditors for financing the Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway, known as M-6. Saeed Ghani said that when he objected to the funding of Lahore motorway, he was told that the federal government was still trying to find funding sources. However, an Ecnec summary stated that the source of funding was “100% through federal PSDP”, he added.
Pakistan is facing a serious resource crunch and there is also a bar by the IMF on funding provincial-nature schemes. Provinces get a 57.5% share in taxes collected by the federal government. Contrary to the Lahore motorway, the Sukkur-Hyderabad motorway is part of the main South-North road network and is the only missing link.
Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal said that Ecnec allowed NHA only to start work on package-I (a) from the Lahore Ring Road to the Raiwind Kasur Road Interchange, measuring 18.5 km, through the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) funds where it had acquired land.
For remaining portions, the NHA would carry out a feasibility study and approach Punjab for 50:50 share and then submit a new PC-1 for approval, he added.
However, Ecnec’s statement included the Rs436 billion project among 13 schemes having total cost of nearly Rs1.3 trillion, which it approved on Tuesday.
The Lahore motorway project comprises construction of two sections. First section consists of a six-lane motorway with a length of 220 km, starting from the Lahore Ring Road and passing through Hujra Shah Muqeem, Depalpur, Okara, Sahiwal, Chichawatni, Harappa and terminates on the National Highway, N-5, near Kassowal.
The second section, having four lanes with a 75km length, is an offshoot of the first section near Depalpur and passes near Pakpattan, Arifwala, further crosses Sutlej river and terminates at Michanabad.
The revised PC-I was recommended by the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) in June 2024 with conditions that package-I of phase-I of the project, starting from the Lahore Ring Road to the Raiwind Kasur Road Interchange measuring 18.5 km, and the Raiwind Kasur Road Interchange to the Bhimke-Chunian Road measuring 33 km (package-II) would only be executed by the NHA under the Economic Development Cooperation Fund (EDCF) of the Korean Exim Bank. The Korean bank provided a loan of $269 million, or Rs75 billion.
CDWP had decided that land acquisition would be carried out by the NHA to the extent of package-1 of 51.5 km prior to the start of procurement/execution of package-I.
The planning ministry document revealed that work on phase-I (a) of package-I (the Lahore Ring Road-Raiwind Kasur Road Interchange of 18.5 km out of the total length of 295 km, had already been taken up for construction, which is now at advanced stages of procurement.
The Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) is the lowest bidder for the package-I, according to these documents. The cost of the package-I (a) from Lahore to Raiwind Road is Rs17.4 billion, including Rs3.7 billion earth work cost.
Ecnec was requested that as 90% land acquisition process had been completed for package-I (a), the NHA may be allowed to start work on package-I (a) through PSDP funds as per the originally approved PC-I and package-I (b) on full availability of funds within the stipulated time period.
