RAWALPINDI: Commissioner retired Capt Mohammad Mehmood on Friday sought proposals from private housing societies for construction of interchanges on the proposed Ring Road.

He asked the private housing societies to participate in the Ring Road project as it would increase economic activities in the region.

He was presiding over the meeting to review the progress on the project.

A senior official of the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) told Dawn that the project was handed over to Lahore Ring Road Authority for execution but due to some resentments from the private firms, the provincial government had decided to return the project to RDA.

“The notification will be issued soon in this regard,” he said.

The official said the project was included in the Annual Development Programme of the Punjab government but work on the construction would be started on private-public partnership basis.

He said the land revenue department was surveying the area to identify government and private land for acquisition.

The government would pay for the constructed sites and agriculture land, he added.

However, the official said the commissioner had already directed to save the agricultural land, which has already been squeezed. Besides, for environmental safety, it was necessary to save the green areas of the Potohar region.

Meanwhile, in a meeting, retired Commissioner Capt Mohammad Mehmood said the government wanted to start the development works to generate employment for the labourers and daily wage workers.

He said though the project was based on private-public partnership, the government would share Rs8 to Rs9 billion in the total amount of the project apart from paying for the land acquisition.

He said land would be acquired for the project by the government for which it had already allocated funds. He said the project would likely start soon and all the homework would be completed before the end of this month.

He said the main objective of the project was to ease the traffic in the city and to foster economic growth.

He further said the plan of decongestion of Rawalpindi includes decentralisation of fruit and vegetable market, cattle market and truck terminals.

He said the project would be initiated this year and likely complete within two years.

He said the 64-km-long road would originate from N-5 near radio Pakistan and after passing through M-1 and M-2 would terminate at Sangjani after crossing N-5 to merge into Margalla Road.

Its design speed is 120km and travel time from Tarnol to Rawat for cars is estimated to be one hour and 14 minutes while more than two hours for trucks with an average speed of 50km.

Published in Dawn, July 4th, 2020