RAWALPINDI: A new deadline of December 30 has been fixed to underground electricity and telephone cables in Commercial Market under the pedestrian street and beautification work launched by the Punjab government.

Last month, the Rawalpindi Municipal Corporation (RMC) started work to turn Commercial Market in Satellite Town into a car-free zone by removing encroachments, hanging electricity wires, telephone and other cables and installing new signboards of shops at a tune of Rs300 million.

However, there has been slow work by Islamabad Electricity Supply Company (Iesco), Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Limited (SNGPL) and Pakistan Telecommunication Company (PTCL) on laying the service wires underground and shifting natural gas supply lines in the pedestrian street.

Under the project, Commercial Market from Chandni Chowk road to Rehmanabad road will be turned into a Pedestrian Street. However, there is no plan for proper parking in the area. To review the project, a meeting was held with Minister for Railways Hanif Abbasi in the chair. The meeting was attended by officials of all the departments concerned.

Dec 30 deadline set to shift power, PTCL lines underground

A senior official of RMC told Dawn that the minister, who is an elected member of parliament from the area, asked the utility companies to complete their work to underground the services by December 30 so that the RMC would start beautification work in the area.

He said that Rs300 million had been provided by RMC on the directives of Punjab government from its annual development funds. He said that the completion time of the beautification was set at June 30 but the minister for wanted to complete it by March or April.

He said that traders of the area expressed resentment over the slow pace of work on the project and said that due to dug up roads, the visitors avoided to come to main commercial market.

He said that all signboards in markets in that area would be on same pattern to look neat and clean. He said that commercial plaza owners had been asked to white wash their buildings under the guidelines of RMC.

On the other hand, the pedestrian street project from Fawara Chowk to Hamilton Road in Raja Bazaar has also been launched but there is also the issue of slow pace of work to underground electricity and PTCL cables.

Due to these projects, the residents of the garrison city have been facing numerous problems especially traffic congestion in the inner town. Traffic jams have become a regular feature and the civic bodies seem helpless to speed up the work.

“The government should start one development work at a time and after completing, it should start another. The RMC had to complete the work in Raja Bazaar first and then it should kick off the work in commercial market but both works started simultaneously,” said Mohammad Zaheer, a motorist in Chandni Chowk.

Zafar Malik, a resident of Liaquat Road, said that dust and broken roads have become a landmark of the area. “All the road works started at the same time and there is worst traffic rush in the garrison city especially during office going and off times,” he said.

Fareed Raja, a resident of Satellite Town, said that cars and motorcycles developed faults in the garrison city due to digging of roads and broken streets. He said that there was all mess in the city.

When contacted, RMC Municipal Officer Raffaqat Gondal said that the RMC would start construction of road and beautification work in Commercial Market and Raja Bazaar once the underground work of cables would be completed.

He said that the Railways Minister Hanif Abbasi fixed the deadline of underground cables work by December 30 and after this RMC will start the beautification work.

“We completed the homework to launch beautification work and in this regard, traders had been taken on board. The traders will replace the signboards of their shops on the pattern provided by the civic body soon,” he said.

When approached, Rawalpindi Traders Association President Shahid Ghafoor Paracha said that shopkeepers in Raja Bazaar and Commercial Market were disturbed due to the slow pace of work in these two projects.

Published in Dawn, November 25th, 2025