Ring road feasibility: RDA gets prequalification bids from 11 firms

Authority will open sealed offers later this week and finalise the awardee

RAWALPINDI: The Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has finally started work on the long pending ring road project in the city.

In this regard, the authority has received prequalification bids from private firms to prepare feasibility reports of the project, it has been learnt

The project, aimed at easing traffic on the roads of the city and provide an alternate road to heavy intercity traffic, had been first conceived in 1992.

The 32 kilometre-long ring road would start from the Chhani Alam Sher near Rawat and would end at Thallian Interchange on the Motorway. The project would help circumvent traffic from the southern areas of the garrison city.

A senior official of RDA informed The Express Tribune on Sunday that the authority had received sealed bids which would be opened and scrutinised during a meeting scheduled for December 9. As many as 11 firms have bid for the Rs26.6 million contract to prepare feasibility reports, including technical design, financial model, legal contract, and feasible route.



The total project is estimated to cost around Rs21 billion with about Rs4.5 billion to be spent buying land for the road.

The RDA official added that the road would be built on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis.

Apart from the road, the original plan for the by-pass envisioned multiple economic zones on both its sides. In this regard, the project was initially estimated to cost over Rs70 billion. However, the Punjab government could not convince any foreign investor to build the road with the zones.

Hence, the idea to build the economic zones has reportedly been dropped and now only the road would be built to by-pass the congested city.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 5^th, 2016.