Work on Ring Road project virtually halted
Work on the 38.3 kilometre-long Rawalpindi Ring Road project has almost been halted after its inauguration last month.
On April 16, Rawalpindi Commissioner and Project Director Ring Road Rawalpindi Noorul Amin Mengal inaugurated the Rawalpindi Ring Road project at Banth Mor, which is being executed by the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).
Since the inauguration of the project, no agreement has been reached between the FWO and the project director regarding the execution of the Ring Road project.
The new price for land acquisition has not yet been completed as well.
The company FWO, which won the contract for the project at a cost of Rs 22.80 billion, also started work on April 16 at Banth Mor and Thalian Interchange, but after the political turmoil in the country, the ongoing work on the project has been stopped practically.
The 38.3-kilometre-long ring road will have six lanes. It will start from Banth GT Road near Rawat and culminate at Thalian near Motorway. The ring road will have a total of five interchanges at Banth, Chak Bailey Khan, Adiala Road, Chakri Road and Thalian Interchange on the motorway (M-2).
The Punjab government had approved the project at a cost of Rs33694.43 million and of which Rs6724.73 million had been earmarked for land acquisition and Rs22.80 billion for its construction.
The basic aim of the project was to ease congestion in the urban transportation system of the twin cities.
A total of 8,992 kanals of land has been purchased for this purpose and over Rs5.90 billion have been released for the land acquisition.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 25th, 2022.