Budget 2017-18: Pindi Ring Road project excluded from Punjab ADB

Officials say NesPak currently conducting fresh feasibility of the project

RAWALPINDI: The Punjab government seems uninterested in starting work on the much-needed Ring Road project in the garrison city since it has failed to make any allocations in the Annual Development Programme of the province in the upcoming fiscal year 2017-18.

A senior official of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) said on Thursday that the multi-billion project had not apparently been excluded from the ADP.



The official said that Lahore had approved five development schemes for the RDA in the budget. The schemes include remodelling Ammar Chowk, reconstructing the road from Tipu Road to Airport Road, re-carpeting the Airport Road from Koral Chowk to Noor Khan Airbase near the Benazir Bhutto International Airport, building an intersection at Noor Khan Base, and re-carpeting the Farooq-e-Azam Road.

He said that absence of Ring Road project from the ADP showed that the Punjab government would not be providing funds for the proposed project which aims to connect GT Road at Rawat to the Motorway at Thalian.

While expressing his surprise, the official said that a feasibility study for the project was currently underway after the RDA had hired NesPak as consultants for the project. A plan may be presented to the authority by end of the ongoing fiscal year.

The Punjab government had been finding it hard to bring in private investment for the long-conceived project that which would provide a 38 kilometer-long corridor allowing heavy traffic such as trucks to by-pass the congested city.



Recently, the Punjab government had been negotiating with the Asian Development Bank trying to strike terms for a loan which would have helped acquire land for the project. However, some reports had suggested that the Punjab government was finding it difficult to agree with terms and conditions set by the ADB for the loan.

First conceived in 1992, the project was considered to have been important for traffic coming from Peshawar to by-pass the city through the ring road and to ease pressure on existing roads of the garrison city.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 9^th, 2017.