Zardari’s chance to complete Pakistan

FOR fifteen years, Pakistan’s motorway network has carried a glaring gap through its centre. The M-6 Sukkur-to-Hyderabad Motorway remains the missing 306-kilometre link between Karachi Port and the country’s northern corridor. Until it is completed, trucks carrying export goods, buses transporting families and ambulances travelling north from Karachi are forced onto the ageing N-5 highway. The consequences are visible every day in deadly accidents, wasted fuel, delayed cargo, damaged produce and rising transport costs. That can now change. Financing has largely been secured, federal approvals are complete and the National Highway Authority is preparing to move ahead. What remains is decisive action from Sindh, particularly on land acquisition. This is the moment for President Asif Ali Zardari and Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah to turn M-6 into the defining infrastructure project of the next two years. Once completed, M-6 will finally connect Pakistan’s motorway chain from Karachi to Peshawar through a continuous six-lane corridor designed for modern traffic speeds. At present, more than 50,000 vehicles daily are pushed onto the overburdened N-5 and N-55 routes. Those highways were never built for such pressure. M-6 would reduce travel time, lower freight costs, improve road safety and strengthen the movement of Sindh’s agricultural and industrial output, including cotton, wheat, mangoes and Thar coal. The motorway alignment passes through major population and trade centres of interior Sindh, including Khairpur, Naushahro Feroze, Shaheed Benazirabad, Shahdadpur, Tando Adam and Matiari. Fifteen interchanges are planned along the route, creating direct commercial access for farmers, traders and industries to Karachi Port within hours instead of days. The project is also an essential component of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor. Without M-6, the north-south trade route remains incomplete. Most procedural barriers have already been cleared. ECNEC approved the project