Roads are the first infrastructure for any country to prosper before any next stop of progress & development

While travelling from Islamabad to Lahore on Motorway and from Lahore to South Punjab on Multan Road. Since last three years whenever I travel on this route.I see new flyovers, new lanes,new interchanges,up gradations, maintenance of roads. My travelling time from Islamabad to my village in Bahawalnagar reduced from 11 hours to 8 hours.My village in Donga Bonga got road after 68 Years. Roads are the basic & foremost infrastructure for economy & social development. If we improve roads, it reduces not only our time to access trade,business,health,education & utilities like Gas,Water & Electricity but also increase outreach of every aspect of our life. A tractor trolley would take 2 to 3 hours to carry crop production to nearest market from my village. Now it takes 45 minutes. A labour with heart attack would never see a hospital due to long & rough ride from village to hospital before he dies on the road. A student in my village could not think of going to a high school 2 to 3 hours away from his house, can now afford to go to a high school. I request all Federal & Provincial Governments to invest on roads. Roads are the first infrastructure for any country to prosper before any next stop of progress & development. Ahmad Jawad

The Punjab government under Khadim-e-Ala Rural Roads Programme (KRRP) has released funds worth Rs1 billion for the carpeting of roads of all rural areas of NA-52, NA-50, NA-51, NA-53, PP-1, PP-2, PP-3, PP-4 and PP-5.

The city district government, Rawalpindi, has completed all necessary formalities and sent a summary to the Punjab chief minister for final approval to start work on the project.

District Officer (DO) Planning Saima Ghafoor told ‘The News’ that the Punjab government has released funds of Rs1 billion for the development of rural roads in Rawalpindi. “We have chalked out a plan to start work in NA-50, NA-51, NA-52, NA-53, PP-1, PP-2, PP-3, PP-4 and PP-5. We have sent a summary to the Punjab chief minister for final approval. We would start working in May after approval,” she claimed.

The Punjab government, through its allocation trend in the budget 2015-2016, appears to be focusing on the much-needed development of communication infrastructure in the rural areas in the province as ‘Rural Roads Programme’ got Rs51 billion, almost 74 percent of the road development budget.

Criticized for metropolis-centred development and ignorant attitude towards the rural areas, the government seems to have attempted to respond to this criticism. The scheme titled Khadim-e-Ala Rural Roads Programme (KRRP) got Rs5 billion in the budget 2014-2015. The total expenditure of the project is Rs15 billion. The government decided to fully fund this project.

Source