Dualization project of 83 kilometre Old Bannu Road to be comleted by Feb 2020

ISLAMABAD, Feb 21 (APP):Natioanal Highway Authority (NHA) is working on dualization and upgradation project of 83 kilometre Old Bannu Road in Bannu district of Khyber Pakhtoonkhaw province.
An official of NHA told APP on Thursday that the first package of the project, Domail – Khurrum portion is 40 km long and was awarded to the Frontier Works Organization,the lowest evaluated bidder, at the bid price of Rs 7.132 billion. Its work started in February 2018 and its completion date is February 24, 2020 and so far about 5 per cent physical progress has been achieved,the official added.
He said the 35 km Khurram-Krapa potion is the second package of the project was awarded to the Frontier Works Organization ,the lowest evaluated bidder, at the bid price of Rs 5.927 billion.
Work on the package started in February 2018 and its completion date is February 24, 2020 and so far about 4 per cent physical progress has been achieved.
The third package of the project Gaandi Chowk – Sarai Naurang section is 8 km long and was awarded to M/s NCC-IKAN-HRPL Joint Venture ,the lowest evaluated bidder, at the bid price of Rs 0.718 billion. Work on the package started in February 2018 and would be completed by June 30 this year while about 22 per cent physical progress of the project has been achieved.
The NHA official said that the development of infrastructure in the less developed areas would contribute to their economic uplift through accelerated trade activities . He further said that the existing road was single carriageway which was being dualized and improved.
He said the project would provide the heavy traffic movement on Indus Highway (N-55) with an alternate route thus sharing the traffic burden with Indus Highway.  Indus Highway is 1,264 km long that runs along the Indus River connecting port city Karachi with Kohat and Peshawar via D. G. Khan and D.I.Khan. The highway being the second largest road connection after Grand Trunk Road,and provides an alternate north-south link while traversing 491 km in Sindh, 360 km in Punjab and 396 km in KPK, and connecting Rajanpur, D.G.Khan, D.I.Khan, Bannu, Kohat and Peshawar.The highway, however, is now facing difficulties in coping with the ever increasing traffic load especially the heavy vehicles due to its limited capacity.