Over 75pc work on Lowari tunnel access roads completes

ISLAMABAD, Sept 24: Over 70 per cent work on the Rs8 billion Lowari tunnel project on Nowshera-Dir-Chitral Road (N-45) has been completed and the project would be ready next year.
A source in National Highway Authority (NHA) on Wednesday said over 75 per cent work on the nine km access roads on both sides of the tunnel had also been completed.
The 8.6 km-long tunnel will provide an all-weather communication linkage to the Chitral valley which remains cut off from rest of the country in winter. It would also facilitate Pakistan's link with landlocked Central Asian state of Tajikistan via the narrow Wakhan strip in Afghanistan. With its completion distance between Peshawar and Chitral would be reduced by five to six hours, he added.
Work on the project started in 2005 but it was formally inaugurated in July 2006 by former president Pervez Musharraf. A Korean firm is constructing around the 7.5 metre wide and seven metre high tunnel.
The project would be completed in two phases. In the first phase, the tunnel would be constructed while in the second phase a railway track would be laid.
He said it would be the biggest freight tunnel in Asia, adding the project was a joint venture between the Korean SAMBU company and some local firms.
It was more than 50 years back when first feasibility of the project was taken up by the government in 1955 and construction work initiated by the Frontier Works Organisation in 1975 during Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's tenure. The FWO carried out tunnelling operation up to 500 metres but the project was abandoned by then military ruler Ziaul Haq citing financial constraints.--APP