Railway bridge project to be completed by November 30

[Salman]

Rawalpindi

Work on project of Mareer Chowk Railway Bridge Expansion Project is being carried out on fast note and would be completed by the end of November 30.

Commissioner (Rawalpindi) Khalid Masud said this while talking to ‘The News’, on the issue of the bridge project and traffic jams on Benazir Bhutto Road despite construction of flyovers.

Replying to a question, commissioner said that one steel structure has already been laid on one side of the bridge while the remaining parts of steel structure would also be placed by the end of current month. He did not agree that funds are hampering the work on the project. “Rather work by the executing body Rawalpindi Development Authority and NLC is being done round the clock and at very fast note,” the commissioner claimed.

Similarly, Khalid Masud did not agree to a question that traffic remains choked from Naz Cinema to Mareer Chowk. However, he assured that the concerned bodies would be instructed to assess the overall situation of traffic from Benazir Bhutto Hospital to Mareer Chowk. The commissioner stated that with the completion of Railway Bridge project, all hurdles would be remove automatically and the traffic flow would get smooth with the opening of both sides of bridge tunnels. When work on any project is started, problems of traffic appears for temporary period. However, the people get permanent relief from traffic snarls after completion of projects, he stated.

Answering a question, the commissioner said that no further mega projects on improvement of traffic system on Benazir Bhutto Road are in pipeline by the present district government and Punjab government. Lot of projects have been enforced worth billions of rupees. However, if need is felt then schemes of alternative routes could be chalked out for further smoothening the flow of traffic on Benazir Bhutto Road, he assured.

Moreover, he assured to discuss the matter of traffic snarls from Naz Cinema to Mareer Chowk with the Punjab government to find out a practical and long lasting solution to tackle this problem, the commissioner said.