Engineers, designers out to save 100-year old banyan tree

NESPAK, stakeholders review Ring Road project progress

RAWALPINDI:

The officials of the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak), Lahore Ring Road Authority (LRRA) and Public Private Partnership Authority (PPPA) toured the hour-long 66.3 kilometre track of the Rawalpindi Ring Road (RRR), a spokesperson shared on Sunday.

The stakeholders also reviewed various proposals to save the more than a century old banyan tree at Radio Pakistan Interchange, the starting point of the project.

In this regard, the RRR Deputy Project Director Mohammad Abdullah said that efforts were being made to save the banyan tree on the special instructions of Rawalpindi Commissioner Mohammad Mehmood.

Abdullah shared that various engineering solutions were being sought in this regard. He added that changes in the design of the project to save the tree would be reviewed and their cost would also be estimated.

During the inspection, officials of Nespak, LRRA and PPPA inspected all the link roads of the project and reviewed plans for future growth on them while officers from the Ring Road Project Management Unit were also present on the occasion.

Rawalpindi Commissioner Mohammad Mehmood had directed Nespak to conduct a survey and find ways to save the century-old banyan tree falling on the Ring Road project site. He said that the tree located at the proposed Radio Pakistan Interchange of the Ring Road should be saved at all cost.

“If more land needs to be acquired to save the tree it should also be reviewed,” he had said while presiding over a meeting held to review the Ring Road project last week.

The commissioner said approval of the project had already been obtained from the environment department which had asked for planting 300,000 new trees in place of 5,000 trees that would be cut down during the construction of the Ring Road.

He said every effort has been made in the design of the road to save forests.