CDA to hire consultant for IJP road expansion

Feasibility to include rehabilitation of the road, adding two lanes and drains

ISLAMABAD: The top civic authority of the federal capital has decided to hire a consultant for the project of expanding, rehabilitating and upgrading the IJ Principal Road.

For this purpose, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has issued instructions to release advertisements regarding the move.

According to the authority, the consultant will be required to prepare complete feasibility of the rehabilitation work, particularly focusing on traffic load.

The feasibility study will also include the design for rehabilitating the IJ Principal Road and to widen it further.

Moreover, the consultant will also prepare a design for two additional lanes and a rigid pavement on both sides of the road as part of the expansion plan.

Furthermore, the design will include need-based provisions for culverts apart from improving the existing culverts. The consultant will also prepare and propose consolidated designs of interchanges at intersections of IJP Road at Ninth Avenue, Tenth Avenue and Eleventh Avenue.

Additionally, plans and designs for drains along the road will also be included in the scope of the consultant’s work.

Realising the importance of the road, the development working party of the CDA had approved a plan to rehabilitate and expand the road with a feasibility study and design under a project concept-II (PC-II) worth Rs30 million.

In this connection, the process of hiring a consultant is being expedited.

The IJ Principal Road was originally built to cater to light traffic plying between Islamabad and Rawalpindi. However, in 2008, heavy traffic including trailers, trucks and buses were shifted onto the road to cut the burden on the Islamabad Expressway and the Kashmir Highway. It caters to inter-provincial traffic from the Punjab, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

As a result of that move, the condition of the road deteriorated sharply. With traffic on the road increasing, more and more traffic accidents were also reported on the road.

Furthermore, due to the heavy traffic flow on the road, traffic jams at peak hours have become a norm.

Little repair and maintenance work has been carried out on the road for the past three years, contributing to its poor current state.

In the light of the study and recommendations of the consultant, a PC-I for the project will be submitted to the federal government for inclusion in the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) in the next fiscal budget.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 23^rd, 2019.