January 06, 2007	Saturday	Zilhaj 15, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Jan 5: The residents of Islamabad will have to put up with the unbearable traffic snarl-ups at Kulsoom Plaza Chowk, as the underpass project will take further two months for completion.

The project was to be completed by November, 2006 but now it would be ready by end of March.

“The contractor has sought two-month extension from the Capital Development Authority for completion of the project but his request has been turned down,” CDA’s Deputy Director-General (Works) Abdul Jabbar Milano told Dawn on Friday. He said the contract may get the extension if his plea was accepted by the CDA consultant currently monitoring the project.

The official said that construction firm, Matracon and Gammon, had assured the authority that the tunnel of the underpass would be opened to traffic by the end of January but the completion of the project would take at least two more months.

When this reporter contacted the project manager of the consultant firm, Faisal Jamal, to seek his views on the completion of the project, he said: “We can open the underpass in 15 days but we need some more time to fully complete the project.”

He agreed that the project had been delayed by four months because CDA could not remove the underground water and gas pipelines and power cables before handing the land over to the firm. “We have spent more than three months only on removal of the underground services,” he said.

The CDA has spent Rs250 million on removal of these services alone that is almost 50 per cent of the total cost of the project.

The project was started in June this year and was set to be completed in six months. But the completion date has now been extended to March 2007. The total length of the underpass is 1.072 kilometer and it would cross three roads - Jinnah Avenue, Fazl-i-Haq Road and Nazimuddin Road.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pepa) has expressed its reservations about the project. The Pepa Director-General, Asif Shujaa, told Dawn that the CDA and the construction firm had not made proper arrangements for disposal of earth removed from the site of the underpass. He said a thick blanket of dust in the vicinity of the underpass was causing air-borne diseases in the capital.

However, Faisal Jamal said that it would be a unique kind of underpass, as the green areas between the three main roads would not be disturbed. Though the underpass project did not require removal of any structure or building in the surroundings, a visual park on Jinnah Avenue being maintained by a private company had been removed.

The underpass project was first approved by former interior minister and the present Environment Minister Faisal Saleh Hayat.

Before the commissioning of the project, some traffic engineers had suggested to the CDA to start the construction of all three underpasses on Jinnah Avenue simultaneously to save time and avoid inconvenience to the commuters.