Islamabad : Costly road lasts not even a year

[Salman]

Islamabad : Costly road lasts not even a year

MURREE, Dec 16: It is hard to believe how just three kilometres long link road consumed Rs220 million and the costly road had washed away just after one year of its completion.

The inordinate delay in the construction of Islamabad-Murree Dual Carriageway (IMDCW) project forced the then government to construct a link road to connect Murree city with the carriageway from Mussiari.

The government spent Rs220 million on the construction of 3km long road from the carriageway to Shawala that started depleting just after one year of its completion and now all the four main turns of the road have washed away. The road is so poorly designed that the CNG vehicles could not get to the top and due to sharp turns, a large number of accidents took place which claimed dozens of lives.

Zia Abbasi, a local resident, former councillor Ghulam Rabbani Abbasi and former union council nazim Haroon Mehfooz pointed out massive corruption in the construction of the road.

They said instead of fresh survey, the road was constructed on old Mussiari jeep track and its alignment did not suit other vehicles like cars, vans and coaches.

When this correspondent contacted Ahmed Ali, Sub Divisional Officer (SDO) Punjab Highway Department, he said that he assumed the charge of the office just four days before so he had not much information in this regard.

However, he confirmed that road had severely damaged at five places and the provincial highway department was making evaluation for its repair.

Mr Ali said that the road was constructed by National Highway Authority (NHA) and it was responsible for ensuring quality of its construction.

On contact, Sardar Saleem Khan, the then town nazim said that he worked hard to get the construction of this road sanctioned.

He said that due to the delay in the construction of carriage way it was necessary to connect Murree city with it through a link road.

He said half of the amount for the construction of the road was provided by federal government and rest was given by the Punjab government.

He said that an impartial inquiry must be conducted to bring the culprits to justice for the negligence and corruption committed in the completion of the project.

It is worth mentioning that anti-corruption department conducted an inquiry into the alleged corruption in the project. Some people were arrested but later were released by the court and no further action was taken by the Punjab government.

Similarly, Murree-Rawalpindi road was damaged due to the digging of land for the construction of a multi-storey parking plaza.

Later, the project was abandoned as the soil testing laboratory declared the land unfit for the construction of multi-storey building. But the road damaged due to digging of land is yet to be reconstructed.

A temporary iron bridge has been installed which is so dangerous that traffic cannot pass through it. Resultantly, heavy traffic for Rawalpindi is using Jhika Gali-Lawrence College bypass road which has been damaged at many places.

Moreover, the road from Jhika Gali to Kohala Bridge is also giving a dilapidated look as it has not been repaired for years.