Cry for construction

The residents of E11 and D12 in Islamabad were overjoyed and hoping to see an early completion of the dualisation of their service roads which would end the traffic chaos and misery that the residents of these two big sectors face. But alas like every project in our dear country, after the initial fanfare there are impediments and bottlenecks. After the initial work of levelling  and making a second lane for dualization of the existing service road things seem to have come to a stop and the dug-up area is now a water canal because of the heavy rains. The part which is not under water is being used by wedding halls as a parking area. The existing portion of the service road has completely broken down due to excessive use and heavy rains.

It is absolutely imperative that the CDA takes notice of the situation and moves the contractors to complete the job on a very urgent basis. There are also rumours that there is infighting going on within the CDA and the newly created city metropolitan corporation headed by the elected mayor whose domain it is to oversee the maintenance and repair etc of the existing roads. Apparently they are being given a tough time by the CDA as the requisite funds are not being released for some projects. The CDA authorities and minister of state for CADD are requested to ensure the release of the necessary funds so that the roads can be dualised and upgraded quickly. It may be mentioned that while the work on dualisation of the E11 east and north service roads has come to a stop, new construction of more marriage halls is going on unhindered on the side of the existing service road – which is further worsening the traffic chaos. Ramazan has already passed and the present monsoon rainy weather will also pass but it appears the progress of road construction in this area will keep crawling at a very slow speed with no early completion in sight. The most sensible thing would be undertake the road construction work during the night when there is no traffic and the work proceeds very rapidly. Hopefully, the concerned authorities will take pity on the residents of E11 and D12 and E12 sectors and get the job done without any further delay.

Zaheer Ahmed

Islamabad