ISLAMABAD: The federal government has so far released Rs 16.266 billion forLahore-Multan Motorway (M-3 section) of Karachi-Lahore Motorway.

The government has allocated Rs. 40.666 billion for this project under itsPublic Sector Development Programme (PSDP) 2018-19, said a latest dataissued by ministry of Planning, Development and Reforms.

Meanwhile an official of National Highway Authority (NHA) said that thephysical work of Lahore-Abdul Hakeem section of M-3 had already beencompleted, however due to some technical issues such as delay in approvalfor deployment of motorway police of this section, the section could not beopened on time.

Now the section is scheduled to be open for traffic by February 15, theofficial added. Among other development projects of NHA, for constructionof motorway from Burhan to Hakla on M-1 to Dera Ismail Khan, the governmenthas so far released Rs. 10 billion out of total allocation of Rs. 25billion whereas Rs. 1 billion have been released for Land Acquisition ,Affected properties compensation and relocation of utilities forconstruction of Burhan/Hakla to D.I. Khan Motorway.

Overall, the government has released an amount of Rs. 37.76 billion for 45new and ongoing projects of NHA out of total allocation of Rs. 112.997billion for the fiscal year 2018-19.