Pindi to get new gas pipeline

Planned to run along Leh Expressway, it will end gas shortage in winter

RAWALPINDI:

The provincial government has prepared a new project to lay a gas pipeline running along the Nullah Leh to put an end to the chronic gas shortage issue in Rawalpindi during the winter season.

The garrison city has been facing decline in supply of natural gas during winter for the past 15 years.

Each year, with advent of winter, supply fails to match the demand for burning heaters and geysers and people are unable to even cook food on stoves running on piped gas.

Subsequently, the residents are forced to use liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinders, coal and even firewood to for heating and cooking in freezing cold.

In order to improve the natural gas supply, Federal Parliamentary Secretary Sheikh Rashid Shafiq held a meeting with the Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited Company (SNGPL) general manager.

Shafiq told The Express Tribune that the senior officer of the gas utility informed him that they have acquired approval for laying a 45-kilometre-long new gas pipeline from Rawat junction to IJP Road through Soan Bridge along Nullah Leh.

He added that the project would be jointly funded by SNGC, the federal and Punjab governments while the work on it would start within six months.

The gas pipeline would be laid along the service road planned to run parallel to the Leh Expressway.

The new gas pipeline project would be completed in two years while the preparation of its feasibility report has been started too, Shafiq said.

The lawmaker said that gas pressure depletes in Rawalpindi during the winter season as old gas supply lines have become rusted and substantial part of the supply goes waste in line-losses.

He added that the government had decided to end the problem permanently.

Talking about the Leh Expressway, Shafiq said, the construction of six to eight floored commercial buildings, plazas and towers has been allowed, albeit with strict SOPs, on both sides of the Leh Expressway, said Federal Parliamentary Secretary Anti-Narcotics Force Sheikh Rashid Shafiq.

High-rise commercial buildings on both sides of the expressway would make the area a commercial hub, creating thousands of new jobs, increase property prices and benefit the poorer citizens living on the banks of the water channel, he said.

Residents of areas which have been demarcated for the construction of the Leh Expressway in Rawalpindi district have demanded that they should be paid market rates for their properties.

Many houses in Jhanda Chichi, Dhoke Chiragh Din, Gawalmandi, Mohan Pura, Ratta Amral, Dhoke Hassu, Dhoke Dalal, Khayaban-e-Sir Syed, Fauji Colony, and Bangash Colony fall along the pre-determined route for the expressway.

Residents and owners of these properties complained that while the government has started its process to mark the land, it has yet to compensate them for it.

The construction of 40 small and large industries connected with the construction industry will also get benefit from the development activities, Shafiq said.

The Rawalpindi administration has banned all kinds of constructions along the Nullah Leh as the demarcation for land to be acquired for the Ring Road project started on Saturday.

Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), the consultant firm NESPAK and the recently formed Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation (RMC) are jointly carrying out demarcation activity, officials said.

The project has been delayed for over 13 years. It was launched in 2003 when Sheikh Rashid was Railways Minister in Pervez Musharraf’s government.

 

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 11^th, 2021.