LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority (LDA) will hire an Australian company-led consortium as consultant for the feasibility of the River Ravi Front Urban Development Project, Dawn has learnt.

The LDA had earlier decided to hire a Pak-American venture being the lowest bidder but dropped it after the US company could not prove its credentials of having requisite experience of 10 years or so.

A senior official privy to the development told Dawn on Tuesday the LDA had decided to hire a leading engineering group, led by Meinhardt (Australia) that was the second lowest bidder of the project feasibility. It offered to complete the task in one year for Rs330 million.

According to information gathered by Dawn, the Meinhardt Group has a vast experience and recently provided consultancy to Tamar Development (Hong Kong), Marina Bay Financial Centre (Singapore), cleaning of Singapore River and Kallang Basin, Bandar Seri Begawan Master plan (Brunei), City Development Plan, Ranchi (India), River Training of Sungei Peng Siang and Sungei Tengah (Singapore).

The consortium will undertake project’s estimate, public or market feedback and project concept. The feasibility also includes geo-technical, socio-economic and topographic surveys of a vast project area along both sides of the River Ravi.

The official said the prime minister, in a recent briefing, had desired to get the project launched and completed soon.

“As soon as we get the consultancy work completed, we will start work on the project’s designing and planning. After this we will be able to start the civil work,” the official added.