KARACHI: Lasbela Chambers of Commerce and Industry (LCCI) President Ismail Suttar demanded that the National Highway Au
thority (NHA) complete the dual-carriageway on Northern Bypass to ease the heavy indus
trial and commercial traffic.
In an SOS to the NHA chairman, Ismail said that the problems being faced by the people and heavy indus
trial traffic of Karachi and Hub, while travelling to Hub from Karachi and back due to the single carriageway on Karachi Northern Bypass (KNB) incurring frequent fatal ac
cidents and severe traffic blockade due to following reasons: city of Hub in Lasbela District of Balochistan is an indus
trial city having large number of industries generating a major portion of revenue collected in Balochistan. As a part of this indus
trial activity, hundreds of containers and other vehicles ply on daily basis on KNBP linking both sides.
After commissioning of the Gwadar Port, the traffic of heavy vehicles has increased considerably on this road thus exerting much pressure on the same. The revival of ship-breaking industry, the ship-breaking 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, the volume of the private and public transport have also increased tremendously and the ongoing progress on the CPEC the importance of this area is increasing day by day due to its being the gateway for the Gwadar Port and also due to the proximity of International ports of Karachi.
As a result of the reasons mentioned above, frequently the traffic jams and blockade occur at this road posing great dangers of fatal ac
cidents on KNBP 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 KNBP that was said to be principally approved but unfortunately delay for some reason on the other. He demanded of the NHA chief to issue necessary instructions to the competent au
thorities to release the funds for construction of dual carriageway on KNBP in order to resol
ve the problems of the people of this region and to create incentive for indus
trial and commercial investments.