Islamabad: Faisal Avenue flyover opened for traffic

[Naveed Yaseen]

Mobarik A. Virk
Capital Development Authority Tuesday opened the southern side of the Jinnah Avenue-Faisal Avenue Flyover for traffic flow, making the flyover fully operational.

CDA Chairman Tariq Mahmood Khan, had been stressing all along since he took over the charge of the office of the chairman in the authority that he would not grant any extension beyond March 23, 2009, the deadline set for completion of the already much-delayed project. However, he had acceded to the contractor Matracon-XB Joint Venture’s argument, who pleaded that the ‘long march’ of March 16 had badly affected the work on the project. Still, the CDA chairman told the contractor to open the ‘northern side’ of the flyover on the given date of March 23 and complete the ‘southern side’ by March 31 and open it for normal flow of traffic.

CDA Director-General (Works), Abdul Jabbar Malano, when contacted told ‘The News’ that the chairman was pleased with the performance of the contractors for having accomplished the task by the given deadline. “Now we have to get the rest of the job underneath the flyover done as quickly as possible. The major task would be to complete the Jinnah Avenue-Faisal Avenue link for the Rawalpindi-bound traffic, right across the Khyber Plaza and carpeting of the round-about underneath the flyover,” the DG (Works) said while talking to ‘The News’. “We hope to complete the carpeting of the round-about underneath the flyover pretty fast now as the bulk of traffic load would be shifted to the flyover as both sides of the bridge have been thrown open now for traffic.

“However, completing the ‘Jinnah Avenue-Faisal Avenue link’ for Rawalpindi-bound traffic is likely to take a couple of weeks. We (the CDA) have already given the deadline of April 15 for completion of this part of the project. And we have all the confidence that the contractor will complete that portion, if not ahead of schedule, at least by the given deadline of April 15,” Mr Malano told ‘The News’.

Now the traffic is flowing on both directions on this three-lane each side flyover and a representative of the contractor told ‘The News’ that the traffic flow has been allowed after ensuring that the basic safety requirements have been fulfilled. The three-lane 11.5 metre wide each side flyover would ensure uninterrupted traffic flow from the 9th Avenue traffic junction right up to ‘Kulsoom Plaza’ junction on the 7th Avenue.

Meanwhile, the contractor is continuing to bemoan about what he said is the ‘indifferent attitude’ of the CDA towards clearance of their outstanding bills for quite some time now. “We have been suffering from severe financial constraints because of this delay in clearance of our bills, but we have managed to accomplish the task by the given deadline,” the representative of the contractor said.

About the completion of the remaining part of the project, he said that the company will take the remaining part of the project one by one and will complete each segment within a week’s time. So, apparently it seems that the contractor may stretch the remaining work well beyond the agreed deadline of April 15 for the completion of the whole project.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=170281