ISLAMABAD: The Metropolitan Corporation Islamabad’s (MCI) first completed project, the rehabilitation of I.J. Principal Road, has deteriorated within six months.

The rehabilitation project was inaugurated by Mayor Sheikh Anser Aziz last July, and work was completed around six months ago at the cost of Rs140 million. However, the newly carpeted road has already developed several patches and ruts – a depression in the road due to the passage of vehicles.

Asghar Ali, a motorist, said it appeared that public funds spent on the project had gone to waste. During a visit to I.J. Principal Road, it was noted that there were patches and ruts from Sabzi Mandi to I-12 and near Khayaban-i-Sir Syed.

According to the project concept-1, the contractor was supported to rehabilitate both lanes from Pindora Chungi to the G.T. Road. The project was initiated by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), but the mayor last year took charge of the project against the wishes of CDA officers. The MCI completed the project after it was given a loan from the CDA; both organisations had been at loggerheads about starting the project before it was finally inaugurated by the mayor.

I.J. Principal Road was constructed in 2005, and receives traffic from Kashmir Highway and other roads, making it one of the busiest roads.

“I do agree that the road has developed ruts because of the heavy traffic load,” said chief metropolitan officer and CDA member engineering Asad Mehboob Kayani. “Actually, there was some fault in the original design of the road, as the engineering wing did not keep in view the need for concrete lane while finalising the PC-1.”

When asked why the MCI began the project if there was a fault in the design, Mr Kayani said: “We did not change the design because construction of a concrete lane would have required [a lot of] funding. But we are going to fix all the ruts within the next few days, at the expense of the contractor.”

He added that the CDA and MCI would plan for separate concrete lanes for trucks in the future, as there are already two separate concrete lanes on the Islamabad Highway.

Speaking to Dawn, a CDA engineer said the road receives thousands of trucks in a week because of the market.

He said normal carpeting gets heated from the tyres of loaded trucks and coal tar develops depressions after it is heated. He added: “There should be a separate concrete lane for trucks.”

The engineer added that the road was meant to bear eight tons of traffic when it was built in 2005, and since then traffic has increased to 25 tons.

The aforementioned project is the only major protect completed by the MCI so far, as it has not received any funding from the federal government for development projects.

“We are running the MCI on promises. The government promised us it would release funding, and we made promises to local representatives accordingly. In fact, there is no funding, no rules of business of the MCI and above all, the mayor and federal government seem uninterested in running the first-ever MCI efficiently,” an MCI official, who asked not to be named, said.

Published in Dawn, September 9th, 2017