The National Highway Authority (NHA) managed to remove all hurdles in the construction of New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) Link Road, meant to provide easy and direct access to its parking area.
The spokesperson of the NHA, Kashif Rehman said that 100 per cent land for the 9-km long link road was now acquired, work on which was already in progress.
“NHA has finally acquired 100 per cent land for NIIA Link Road. This project has total cost of Rs 4.5 billion and it will hopefully be completed by December this year,” Kashif said.
The major portion of the overall passage remained in limbo for months due to some land acquisition hurdles, mounting fears of enhancing cost of the plan.
Kashif denied any increase in the cost of the project due to delay in the acquisition of land. He, however, did not mention the causes for delay in possession of the land.
The project is claimed to be the shortest and most cost effective approach linked to the parking of the new state-of-the-art airport.
It may be mentioned that the link road project was approved by the prime minister in January 2015 while only 20 per cent work could be completed up till now. The NHA claims to complete the remaining 80 per cent work by December.
The work on the new airport is also on fast track which is scheduled to be made operational by July 2017 to replace the overburdened Benazir Bhutto International Airport.