RDA working to start Ring Road project

Rawalpindi: On the directives of the Punjab government particularly chief minister, the present management of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) headed by Chairman Arif Abbasi is working seriously on ring road project measuring 38.5 kilometers to ease the traffic mess in Rawalpindi and its linking roads.

Well informed official source told ‘The News’ here Monday, that the Punjab government has directed RDA chief Arif Abbasi as well as Director General Mohammad Hayat Lak to prepare feasibility study of Ring Road which include its designing and alignment work.

For preparing feasibility report, the Punjab government has also made allocation of Rs10 million to RDA. The official source told that work on feasibility has been initiated and is likely to be completed within a month or two. First we would hire consultants through print media to start work on feasibility study. Tenders would soon be floated in press in the coming days.

With the completion of feasibility study, would be submitted to the Punjab government for reviewing and approval purpose. It is the fourth time, RDA has initiated work on Ring Road project since this department came into existence some 30 years ago.

It merits to mentioning here that the former Director General of RDA, Makeen Shahbaz was very eager to enforce Ring Road project in Rawalpindi and had tried two times to enforce it just to end traffic suspensions in Rawalpindi particularly on busy Murree Road. But all his hard work and efforts remained futile. Both times during his tenure as Director General, the mega project remained not enforced despite completing works on feasibility studies. At that time, the cost of Ring Road construction was estimated Rs19 billion. However, if the work on this mega scheme is practically enforced it would cost not less than Rs50 billion and could even touch to amount of Rs70 billion mark, the source believed.

Similarly, another attempt was made to start work on Ring Road during the previous government of PML-N in Punjab. However, again despite completing feasibility study of it, the project was not enforced for the reasons better known to the concerned authorities in the then government and RDA.

However, official spokesman to RDA, Hafiz Mohammad Irfan, its director general, Mohammad Hayat Lak expressed their full hope that this time, work on Ring Road would be initiated and completed in letter and spirit. The Punjab government is fully determined to resolve traffic suspension problem in Rawalpindi. On this basis, it has decided to practically transform Ring Road project into reality. Funds for this mega project would be allocated in the next fiscal year budget 2019-18.