RAWALPINDI: Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif will likely lay the foundation stone of the Rawalpindi Ring Road (R3) project on Tuesday (today), though the district administration has been in the process of acquiring the land for the project.

Besides, the consultant has also failed to provide details of the optimal route of the Ring Road connecting motorway with G.T. Road at Sangjani.

During PTI tenure, two routes were planned for the R3 project and later it started the work on 38.3 kilometer long main carriageway from Baanth (N-5) to Thallian (M-2).

Former prime minister Imran Khan laid the foundation stone at Thallian in March 2022 and the contract of the project worth Rs22.8 billion was awarded to Frontier Works Organisation (FWO).

Provincial govt still in process of acquiring land

Last year, the current government stopped the work and Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif asked the authorities concerned to hire a consultant for third party validation of the optimal route of the Rawalpindi Ring Road project.

Upon this, a joint venture of Turkish and Pakistani firm selected 38.3km route from Banth to Thallian of the project for third party validation. However, it gave two proposals to connect it from the motorway to Sangjani in the second phase.

Senior officials of the district administration were of the view that the joint venture had failed to complete the task and made the report in hurry and it selected the route from G.T. Road Rawat to Motorway but did not select the route from motorway to Sangjani.

“It recommended hiring another consultant to choose the second phase. According to Terms of Reference, the consultant had to provide an optimal route clearly on the directions of Prime Minister Shahbaz Sharif,” the senior official said.

“RDA has already spent more than Rs600 million on consultancies of the Ring Road project and if another consultant is hired then more funds will be needed for consultancy,” he said.

He said the district administration had imposed Section 4 to impose a ban of purchase and sale of land but no funds had been allocated by the provincial caretaker government for land acquisition.

“During PTI tenure, Imran Khan laid the foundation stone of the same route in haste without completing the land acquisition and the same is being done by the present government so that it can lay foundation stone apparently before its tenure comes to an end,” he said.

When approached, RDA Director General Saif Anwar Jappa said the project would be launched on the route selected by the consultant and in this regard, all the homework had been completed.

He said the consultant had completed the task and it gave two options to the provincial government.

About land acquisition, he said the work had already been awarded to FWO and it would start it after the land acquisition. He said it was not unusual as the district price committee had already fixed the rates of land and survey of the route completed and we have just to purchase the land from the owners.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2023