ISLAMABAD: Minister for Communication Murad Saeed on Friday informed the Senate that as many as 1200 persons, recruited in Motorway were under training while around 5000 more persons would be recruited in Motorway police.

Responding to various supplementary questions during Question Hour, the minister said Hyderabad-Sukkur Motorway was in bidding process while Quetta-Chaman-Karachi Motorway was at planning stage.

He said western route of Balochistan was a dream which was now being turned into reality. Similarly, work on Kohat – D I Khan Motorway was also underway, he added.

The minister said Shorkot interchange has been operational since 2nd February 2019. However the vehicles have to exit at Shorkot Interchange due to Segregation of Toll.

Toll on M-4 was collected in two sections separately i.e. from Pindi Bhattian to Shorkot and from Shorkot to Multan through two different operators, therefore, the toll revenue at Shorkot Interchange/Toll Plaza needed to be segregated, he said.

He said to resolve the issue NHA has floated a single tender for entire M-4 Section from Faisalabad to Shortkot-Khanewal-Multan (297 Kms) and the same was in the finalization stage.

After award to successful bidder the issue would be resolved and vehicles would not have to exit at Shorkot Interchange/ Toll plaza.

To another question, the minister said services areas on Lahore-Abdul Hakeem Motorway would be fully operationalized by end of this month.

Regarding Multan-Sukkur Motorway, he said out of total six, five services areas had been fully operationalized.