Three years and counting: Incomplete Rawalpindi Sports Gymnasium awaits funds

Project was put on hold three months before its completion.

RAWALPINDI:

The Rawalpindi Sports Gymnasium is an odd victim of the provincial government’s financial crunch. The Rs50 million project, which was being established to provide an array of sports facilities to the city’s untended residents, was put on hold just three months before its scheduled completion in 2009.

Construction work on the gymnasium near Satellite Town was briefly stalled by the Punjab government to decide on the kind of hardwood floors to be installed in the basketball and volleyball courts, said an official of the Punjab government, requesting not to be named.

But three years on, the required Rs15 million funds needed to give finishing touches to the gymnasium have not been released. “The reason for the holdup is none other than the government’s lack of funds,” the official added.

The government awarded the tender for the facility’s construction in October 2006. Work started in March 2007. Most of the work on the building, including the construction of indoor sports courts, main rooms and related facilities was completed before construction was stopped.

Right now, apart from the hardwood floors in the basketball and volleyball courts, some minor work is needed on the swimming pool, the lockers and restrooms, according to the Punjab government official.

The official said that higher authorities have been informed time and again about the pending construction work but the requests have been falling on “deaf ears”.

The local provincial assembly member, Advocate Raja Muhammad Hanif Abbassi, said he recently took up the issue with MNA Hamza Shahbaz Sharif during his visit to the Rawalpindi Cricket Stadium. Sharif assured that funds for the gymnasium will be released in the current fiscal year ending in June, Abbasi said.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 20^th, 2012.