RAWALPINDI: Funds for the metro bus project worth Rs300 million have lapsed due to the Rawalpindi Development Authority’s (RDA) inefficiency, which had to pay contractors for the fiscal year 2016-17.

A senior RDA official told Dawn that the civic body- which is the executing agency for the project worth Rs44.81 billion- stopped payments to contractors and asked them to repair leakages on the elevated road from Marrir Chowk to Faizabad and complete other repair work first.

He said this took the contractors more than six months to complete.

“In the meantime, the provincial government released the money in May and when the money arrived, the director general was transferred,” he said.

“Water leakages became very prominent on the road soon after the bus service between Rawalpindi and Islamabad was launched as the contractors had not made proper arrangements for draining rain water from the elevated road and underground metro bus stations,” he explained.

RDA was supposed to pay Rs300m to contractors for repair of elevated bus track

The official said water leakages were visible at Committee Chowk, Liaquat Bagh, Waris Khan and other areas though drainage pipes had been installed along the elevated road.

He said the contractors improved the condition of the pillars and outer walls of the elevated road but many other improvements were still needed and that the contractors will carry out the remaining work once they are assured they will be paid the outstanding amount.

The official said the elevators and escalators at many bus stations are not working properly and that people had made complaints to the RDA only to be told to contact the Punjab Metro Bus Authority, which is responsible for looking after the service.

The metro bus service was started in 2015 and work on various parts of the project continued till 2017. The RDA official said though work on the project had been officially completed, some work on the road remained on the Peshawar Mor Interchange which the contractor had left.

“The road connecting the bus depot from the interchange to Kashmir Highway is incomplete as is the service road connecting H-9 from the nurseries to the Kashmir Highway and near the Sunday Bazaar,” he said.

When asked, RDA spokesperson Hafiz Irfan said the remaining payments for contractors will be released at the start of the fiscal year 2017-18 next month.

He said contractors had to carry out repair work as per the agreement and claimed the leakages had been repaired already.

However, Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf MPA Arif Abbasi said the leakages on the elevated road were still visible and that proper arrangements for this had not been made.

“I raised the matter in the Punjab Assembly many times but the provincial government did not respond. If the leakages had not happened, why was the RDA carrying out repair work when the medical student died on the elevated road on April 24,” he asked, adding that it was commonly known that the quality of work done on the metro bus project was not good.

Published in Dawn, June 29th, 2017