ISLAMABAD: Interior Minister retired Brigadier Ijaz Shah on Thursday inaugurated construction of an underpass on Faisal Avenue to link the G-7 and G-8 sectors.

The project, worth Rs268.905 million, will be completed in a year. The construction of two underpasses on Faisal Avenue connecting G-7 and G-8 and F-7 and F-8 was approved in 2014.

According to the capital’s master plan, the CDA was also supposed to construct underpasses to connect all the residential sectors. However, so far, the authority has constructed underpasses and bridges on 7th Avenue that connect G-6 and G-7 and F-6 and F-7.

Faisal Avenue, which is one of the busiest roads in the city, has been facing traffic congestion at its two u-turns, one near Zero Point and the other near Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) where the underpass is now being constructed. But the civic agency seems not interested in starting work on the second underpass to link F-7 and F-8.

Speaking on the occasion, the interior minister said the project was imperative to ease traffic on Faisal Avenue and link to the residential areas.

He said such projects were need of the hour as population and traffic load were increasing in the capital.

Special Assistant to Prime Minister on CDA Affairs MNA Ali Nawaz Awan said the PTI government was focusing all the stalled projects. He said Burma Bridge project which remained neglected for years was in progress while development work in E-12 was about to start.

The sector was launched in 1989 but people who purchased plots from the CDA are still waiting to get their developed plots.

The civic agency awarded the contract of the underpass in August this year but due to a delay in getting the no-objection certificate (NOC) from the Environment Protection Agency, the construction started after a delay of almost two months.

Published in Dawn, October 18th, 2019