KARAK: Federal Minister for Housing and Planning Akram Khan Durrani on Sunday announced reconstruction of the Indus Highway from Kohat to Gandi Chowlc here.

He made the announcement while addressing a public meeting at Krappa af ter inaugurating a Liquefied Petroleum Gas (LPG) plant established by a private firm in the area. He said the plant was the biggest in the province with a 400 metric tonnes capacity. He said the LPG plant would generateemployment for local people.

Mr Durrani claimed the federal government had given 100mmcf gas to the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government to help it establish a power generation plant to provide electricity to industries.

The minister said the government was in contact with the foreign investors to establish an oil refinery in the district and asked the national investors to come forward to make investment in raw materials available in Karak.The federal minister said a lot of oil and gas resources were available in the southern districts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and asked the government to press the oil and gas exploration companies to focus on Latamber area of Karak, FR Bannu and Lakki Marwat.

The federal minister also approved roads from Domail to Rangeenabad Chowk and Saray Naurang to Ganderi Chowk.

He claimed that due to the efforts of Maulana Fazlur Rehman the prime minis-ter had `included` the southern districts of KP in the CPEC. The minister claimed that roads would be built to link Bannu, Karak and Kohat to the CPEC.

Mr Durrani said another road would be constructed from Bannu to Ghulamkhel which would be further extended to Afghanistan. He said there was no development project in Karak despite the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa government`s claim that it had earmarked billions of rupees for the purpose. Correspondent