Dual carriageway on Karachi Northern Bypass demanded

President of Lasbela Chamber of Commerce of Commerce and Industry (LCCI), Ismail Suttar, has demanded of the National Highway Authority (NHA) to complete the dual-carriageway on the Karachi Northern Bypass in order to ease the heavy industrial and commercial traffic.
"Single carriageway on Karachi Northern Bypass create many problems for people and heavy industrial traffic of Karachi and Hub when they travel to Hub or return from there to Karachi," he said in a SOS to the Chairman NHA, adding that this also caused frequent fatal accidents and severe traffic blockade.
Ismail Suttar said that the city of Hub in Lasbela District of Balochistan is an industrial city having large number of industries and generates a major portion of revenue collected in Balochistan. He said that as a part of this industrial activity, hundreds of containers and other vehicles ply on daily basis on Karachi Northern Bypass (KNB) linking both sides.
"After commissioning of the Gwadar Port, the heavy vehicles travelling increased considerably on this road thus exerting much pressure on KNB. The revival of the ship-breaking industry, relevant 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," he said, adding that the volume of the private and public transport have also increased tremendously and owing to ongoing progress on the CPEC, importance of this area is increasing day by day because it is the gateway for the Gwadar Port and also due to the proximity of international ports of Karachi.
Lasbela CCI president said that as a result of the reasons mentioned above, traffic jams and blockades occur frequently on this road posing great dangers of fatal accidents on KNB 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 KNB that was said to be principally approved but unfortunately has been delayed for some reasons," he said.
Suttar demanded of the NHA chief to direct the relevant authorities to release the funds for construction of dual carriageway on Karachi Northern Bypass in order to resolve the problems of the people of this region that would also be an incentive for industrial and commercial investments.