The World Bank has formally signed off a $250 million grant to upgrade roads crossing Afghanistan's Hindu Kush mountains, crucial trade links that are often closed in winter by snow. The money will be used to improve the Salang highway, which connects Kabul and northern Afghanistan to Central Asia. The highway, an important trade route with neighbouring Tajikistan, cuts through the mountains of the Hindu Kush and rises to 3,400 metres. The World Bank grant will also fund work to the road linking Baghlan to Bamiyan, also in northern Afghanistan.
Both roads "will be accessible during all four season of the year including the winter time with minimum interruption," World Bank official Raouf Zia told AFP. "Harsh winters often force closures of the Salang pass," Bob Saum, World Bank director in Afghanistan, said when the grant was approved in October. "And so upgrading alternative roads at lower altitudes, such as from Baghlan to Bamiyan, is important to secure traffic flows and economic activities throughout the year," he added.
The $250 million will be delivered in March to upgrade the 152-kilometre Baghlan to Bamiyan highway, which will be paved with asphalt, and to improve an 87-kilometre section of the Salang highway, including the 2.6-kilometre Salang tunnel. The deal between the Afghan government and the World Bank's International Development Association arm was signed on Sunday. In February 2010, a series of avalanches along the Salang highway killed 169 people.
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