The LSM (Lahore Sialkot Motorway) was originally conceived by the Ex-Chief Minister of Punjab, Choudhary Pervaiz Elahi. In 2006 and its foundation stone was laid in 2007 by the ex-President of
Pakistan, General
Pervez Mushaaraf. Its land was acquired but no actual construction work was started. According to the original plan, the LSM would have been opened to the public in 2008 at the cost of Rs 18bn but the Government of Punjab shelved the project due to political reasons. Later the Ex-Prime Minister of Pakistan,
Imran Khan, re-ordered construction of the LSM. The
National Highway Authority (NHA) shortlisted only two companies — Frontier Works Organization (FWO) and a foreign firm for undertaking this project. LSM is M-11, which will run parallel to
M-2 from
Lahore to
Islamabad. The next phase, the
M-12 from
Sialkot to
Kharian (via
Gujrat), is under construction, and the final phase, the
M-13, will be
Kharian to
Rawalpindi. It is linked to
M2 Motorway via
Rawalpindi Ring road. LSM was originally designed to be a six lane
motorway but it was built as a four lane
motorway. On August 15
M-TAG was installed on the toll plaza at the northern end of the motorway and all vehicles had to use M-TAG as the only form of payment. However, at the southern Toll Plaza M-TAG was not installed at the same time. M-TAG refilling stations were installed on both Toll Plazas with an offer for a free account for a few days. The
motorway was completed and opened for traffic at March 18 2020. The motorway is also prone to small closures usually because of fog. Such as of March 2025 the motorway closed due to fog but reopened later. == Auxiliary Routes ==