‘We have no money for Leh Expressway’

Rawalpindi commissioner says Punjab govt yet to release funds for initiating the 13-year old project

RAWALPINDI: Just months after making major strides in converting the project into a reality, the Punjab government has termed it ‘impossible’ to construct the Leh Expressway project within the current economic scenario, sources said on Friday.

Due to the 13-year delay in constructing the project, its cost has ballooned to Rs60 billion, making it impossible for the provincial government to afford it at the moment, they said.

Given the fanfare created around it, the government is not content with just putting the project on the backburner, it also wants to make the project ‘disappear’, at least from public discussions, sources said.

Sources claim that the Punjab government, led by Chief Minister Usman Buzdar, has conveyed to the Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad — the staunches public advocate for the project having initiated it several years ago — to desist from speaking on the project.

A Chinese company had recently offered to conduct a feasibility study on operating a monorail train alongside the expressway, but that project has been shelved as well, even though it was to be conducted at no cost to the government, sources said.

“We have no money for the Leh Expressway,” Rawalpindi Commissioner Captain (retired) Muhammad Mahmood bluntly told The Express Tribune when asked about the issue.

Capt Mahmood, however, asserted that he had no knowledge about whether the Punjab government had asked Ahmad not to speak of the project anymore.

The commissioner further said that the project was technically feasible and beneficial for residents of the garrison city who have to commute to the federal capital daily for work and other purposes. However, the biggest impediment was the acute paucity of finances.

He confirmed that the proposal of the Chinese company to conduct a feasibility study for the monorail project has been shelved as well.

Sources reminded that Ahmad had first inaugurated the Leh Expressway in 2007when former dictator General Pervez Musharraf was the president. However, it fell victim to the lack of political ownership after the change of government.

When the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) came into power in 2018, Ahmad being an ally of the government, announced to resume work on the project.

Despite several announcements, nothing moved on the ground, while the Punjab government kept its purse shut, sources said.

They said the purpose of constructing the thoroughfare was to reduce traffic flow in Rawalpindi along Rawalpindi’s Murree Road. While construction of the road link could have made travelling from Islamabad to GT Road easier, the progress stopped because payments for the land acquired for the project during the Musharraf governments were frozen by the subsequent PPP and PML-N regimes.

Rashid, after becoming a federal minister, had announced to expand the project from New Katarian Ammar Chowk to Lahore High Court Rawalpindi Bench Chowk and onwards to the intercity bus terminal of Soan Adda, sources said.