Srinagar,

After a long wait, Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Friday threw open the first phase of the Jehangir Chowk-Rambagh expressway corridor from the Amar Singh College area to the Barzalla bridge here. Built at a cost of Rs 350 crore by the Jammu and Kashmir Economic Reconstruction Agency (J&KERA), the Asian Development Bank-funded project is expected to decongest the traffic on the road towards Barzalla and the Srinagar airport and the time to cover the area would also be reduced to a great extent. An official statement said the Natipora limb of the project was going to be made trafficable within two months and the whole four-lane flyover, spanning more than one-and-a-half km would be made functional by the year-end. Ministers Naeem Akhtar, Syed Altaf Bukhari, Muhammad Ashraf Mir and Asiea Naqash, along with Divisional Commissioner (Kashmir) Baseer Ahmad Khan and other senior officers of the divisional and district administration were present on the occasion.