LAHORE, Aug 12: Chief Minister Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi inaugurated on Tuesday the construction of an underpass on The Mall canal bridge, announcing that he would carry out massive development activities in the city with the help of PML-Q workers.

The city would be given five new underpasses to be constructed at a cost of Rs750 million during the current financial year. Besides, there would be water and sewerage facilities in the neglected areas and the walled city, the chief minister pledged while speaking at a public meeting after unveiling the plaque of the project to be completed with an expenditure of Rs248.3 million in three months.

Ministers, MPAs, senior government officials and party workers attended the meeting held at the site of the new underpass. Communication and Works Minister Chaudhry Zaheeruddin Khan, City District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood and Chief Secretary Hafeez Akhtar Randhawa sat beside the chief minister.

He said the underpasses, which would be constructed up to the motorway, would be ready within an year to facilitate travellers. The underpass on The Mall would facilitate 250,000 people daily, he added.

The chief minister said the government’s development plan for the city would dispel the wrong impression that big cities, especially Lahore, were being ignored.

He claimed that the previous government took the credit of constructing roads in the city for which the Musharraf government had paid Rs2 billion. The government, he said, was also paying the remaining Rs1.50 billion for these roads.

Regretting lack of sewerage facilities in several parts of the city which he visited during recent rains, he vowed to resolve all such problems and to beautify the city.

Mr Elahi said Lahore would also be given a ring road, and the government was also considering to construct overhead bridges and underpasses at Qartaba Chowk, near the Punjab Assembly, and at the GPO Crossing on The Mall.

He said all the development activities would be carried out on the platform of the PML-Q. The parties which ignored their workers did not succeed, he remarked.

The chief minister said the government had postponed its Aug 14 rally in view of the damage done to life and property in the recent rains in Sindh. “Money to be used for the meeting will be sent to the Sindhi people for relief, he said.

Minister Chaudhry Zaheer said this three-lane double carriageway underpass would be 50 metres long. Five more underpasses would be constructed near the Shaukat Khanum Hospital bridge, Doctor’s Hospital, Muslim Town and FC College on the canal and Faisal Square, the minister concluded.