Construction of new road set to begin

LAHORE: The Traffic Engineering and Traffic Planning Agency (TEPA) is set to commence work on a 4.5 kilometre road connecting Multan Road and the Khayaban-i-Jinnah in December, The Express Tribune has learnt.

The agency had awarded the Rs1.197 billion-contract for the project to ZKB in October. Three companies had submitted tenders for the project. ZKB has been given six months to complete the project.

The company was given one month to design the project. Construction work on the road will begin in December. The Planning Commission-I (PC-1) document of the project had been approved in a Public Works Department (PWD) meeting in February. The project comes with a total cost of Rs 2.616 billion.

The state-of-the-art road would address traffic congestion on Multan Road and Raiwind Road, passing through five housing colonies.

The project includes an 800-metre bridge over the canal and the Mohlanwal Road.

The construction of the road would reduce the distance between Multan Road and Khayaban-i-Jinnah by 4.5 kilometres.  The road will start from the Shahpur Interchange of the Motorway.

Deputy Director Muhammad Asad said 50 houses had to be demolished before the start of construction work on the project.

He said nearly 90 per cent of these houses had been demolished.

Asad said the road connecting the Punjab University to the E&T Colony will become a part of the project and no additional land will be purchased from the university.

Small tracts of land are being purchased from Wapda Town Phase II to widen the existing road by ten feet on each side.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 26^th, 2014.