PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Highways Council (KPHC) has approved construction of three new highways, repair and maintenance of 410-lcilometre long roads and construction of two bypass roads.

According to a statement issued here, Rs1,360 million will be spent on construction of the new highways while the road will be repaired at a cost of Rs1,565 million.

The approval was given in a meeting held here with Chief Minister Pervez Khattak in thechair. The meeting also decided to bring two more highways under the control of KPHC.

The chief minister also sought deadline for completion of the ongoing cleanup operation against encroachments throughout the province and asked communication and works and local government departments to wind up the operation within next six months.

The meeting reviewed progress on implementation of the decisions taken in the previous meeting of the council and also took important decisions regarding construction of three new highways in the province, maintenance plan for the current financial year for repairing and rehabilitating different roads, provincialisation of two roads, capacity enhancement of KPHA, revenue genera-tion, anti-encroachment drive and certain other affairs.

The chief minister directed the KPHA to work out feasibility for construction of 12-kilometre Swabi bypass road and conduct survey and prepare PC-I for the proposed Rajar-Takht Bai road. He asked KPHA to include maintenance cost of provincial highways into annualbudgetforfuture.

Mr Khattak also directed to ensure completion of the proposed Swat motorway project within one year after finalising its tendering process by March next.

Discussing progress on repair and rehabilitation of the floodaffected communication infrastructure and other facilities in Chitral, the chief minister directed the communication and works department to hand over flood-hit schemes as well as newlyapproved projects for the district under ADP of the current financial year and PSDP schemes to the Frontier Works Organisation to ensure their early and up to the mark execution.

Mr Khattak also ordered to install weight bridges on all the provincial highways to check overloading ofthefreightvehicles.

Rejecting a proposal for establishing KPHA police force for security and traffic discipline on the highways, he said that services of traffic warden police must be acquired for the purpose as the services were being extended to all districts of the province.

Mr Khattak also approved grant of honoraria, equal to one moth salary, for employees of KPHA and constituted a committee for formulation of service rules for them.approved projects for the district under ADP of the current financial year and PSDP schemes to the Frontier Works Organisation to ensure their early and up to the mark execution.

Mr Khattak also ordered to install weight bridges on all the provincial highways to check overloading ofthefreightvehicles.

Rejecting a proposal for establishing KPHA police force for security and traffic discipline on the highways, he said that services of traffic warden police must be acquired for the purpose as the services were being extended to all districts of the province.

Mr Khattak also approved grant of honoraria, equal to one moth salary, for employees of KPHA and constituted a committee for formulation of service rules for them.