ISLAMABAD  -  In an ambitious move, the Federal Minister for Communications Abdul Aleem Khan has announced plans to build a new motorway from Sukkur to Karachi—bypassing the existing Karachi-Hyderabad Motorway (M-9) and directed the National Highway Authority to start its planning.

However, it is a bitter reality that Aleem Khan is preparing for another motorway when the road authority has been struggling from the last many years to complete the last missing link of Peshawar-Karachi Motorway between Sukkar-Hyderabad.  

Sources informed that on the wish of the federal minister, the planning wing of NHA got approval of PC-II from the Development Working Party to engage a consultant to conduct a feasibility study of the project.

When contacted, a senior officer of the planning wing informed that the new motorway will be constructed in addition to the existing Hyderabad-Karachi Motorway to directly link Karachi Port with the motorway network.

He however explained that the alignment till Hyderabad is not going to be changed as the Sukkur-Hyderabad Motorway project will remain intact but another motorway would be built from Hyderabad to Karachi as well.      

According to a press release issued on Wednesday, Federal Minister for Communications, Privatization and Board of Investment Abdul Aleem Khan has issued instructions to take steps for starting the construction of the motorway from Karachi to Sukkur.

In a special departmental meeting, Abdul Aleem Khan observed that the Sindh government will also be invited to join the construction of this motorway.  

The minister said that the motorway will start from Karachi Port and will be connected to the Multan-Sukkur Motorway. Similarly, after the construction of the Karachi-Sukkur Motorway, the North-South Motorway network in the country will be completed.

Aleem Khan further said that the Karachi-Sukkur Motorway project should be started as a Public Private Partnership.

However, if Public-Private Partnership is not available, the government itself will bear the cost of this project. He said that the motorway will prove to be a milestone in the country’s development, especially in the transportation of commercial goods.

The minister said that in the next 25 years the motorway will give the government Rs3000 billion as profit. He hoped that work on Karachi-Sukkur Motorway will start as soon as possible in the year 2025 so that this important project of national development can be completed in the shortest possible time.