ISLAMABAD: Former bureaucrat Roedad Khan has urged Prime Minister Imran Khan to get work on the ongoing Margalla Road project stopped.

From the platform of Margalla Hills Society, Mr Khan wrote a letter to the prime minister seeking his intervention to get the project stopped. He maintained that the project was inaugurated before carrying out an environment impact assessment (EIA), which was against the law.

“The Margalla Hills National Park serves as lungs for the entire area of ICT and all these ill-planned projects are suffocating the situation. The city has a national park within it which is very rare, home to a diverse wildlife population and unique flora and fauna probably no other national park has such a rich biodiversity, which must be protected through smart zoning and maintenance of protected green areas,” he said.

“Cutting into green and making highways in and around the city defeats the purpose of the carefully delineated green master plan. A smart mobility plan needs to be put in place along with other zoning guidelines. These should be strictly followed. The master plan should not be used as excuse to destroy the city.”

He said if measures through a rigorous ecological and environment friendly zoning plan were not made at this stage, “we stand to lose this beautiful city to traffic concrete and pollution.”

On the other hand, the CDA, which is executing the project, has been stating that the road was part of Islamabad’s master plan.

In a recently-held public hearing, the CDA officials said besides other areas six planned residential sectors were dependent on the road. The CDA said the road was meant for smooth and uninterrupted traffic flow aimed at saving travel time and fuel.

The civic agency has earmarked Rs100 million for the environment side of the project and announced that 75 trees falling in the right of way of the project will be transplanted.

The CDA through Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) is constructing the 10-km-long road from Sangjani to D-12, where it will be linked with Khayaban-i-Iqbal.

The officials said the road would pass through CDA’s acquired land and its three km portion would fall in the national park area which was a permissible practice.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2021