April 20, 2006	Thursday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 21, 1427

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JHANG, April 19: Scores of villagers residing across the river Chenab and on Jhang-Sargodha, Jhang-Labian and Jhang-Pirkot roads have decided to launch a movement to voice their demand that the government should build a new road bridge close to the existing one.

The existing over a century old rail-cum-road (Riwaz) bridge is located near Chand Bharwana over the Chenab, about 15 kilometres from here, on Jhang-Sargodha Road.

The protesters have constituted an action committee comprising lawyers, journalists, farmers, student leaders and public representatives to lead the agitation. This was stated by committee secretary-general Fazal Abbas Shah, a journalist from Shah Jesuna, while speaking to Dawn.

He said the committee at its emergency meeting had decided to stage rallies on either sides of the old, rickety bridge and, if necessary, block the traffic to make the demand heard by the higher-ups. He said they had already staged demonstration in front of the bridge last week with some 300 to 400 people displaying placards, demanding construction of a new bridge.

He claimed that the next demonstration would attract thousands of people, who would turn up on tractor-trolleys. He lashed the federal and provincial governments which, according to him, announced mega projects only for those areas where people stood up against the authorities.

The single-lane narrow old rail-cum-road bridge was built by the British in 1904. It allows only one-way traffic as it has over the years become too narrow to accommodate the growing number of vehicles. After the construction of motorway, traffic jams have become the order of the day here.

Worse still, the bridge is in a dilapidated condition and with the uninterrupted movement of trains, trawlers and light traffic from dawn to dusk, it has become a positively dangerous travel with a high risk of serious accident.

It is pertinent to mention that Faisal Saleh Hayat, when he was a commerce minister in the first Benazir Bhutto government, got a bridge sanctioned in 1990 but before the work could start on this all-important project, the PPP government was dismissed. In 2003, Mr Hayat again got the nod from the government for a new bridge and heavy machinery had arrived at the site. A date for inauguration ceremony, too, was fixed but once again the project was put in the cold storage.