FAISALABAD, May 5: Motorists especially those who intend to reach Allied Hospital are facing a great deal of inconvenience after a contractor abandoned the dual carriageway’s single wing without carpeting it after laying sewerage pipelines.

Around two months ago, the provincial government tendered the project to lay the sewer on one side of the Allied Hospital Road that also connects Jail Road and Sargodha Road and caters to hundreds of patients and their families visiting Allied Hospital and Punjab Institute of Nuclear Medicine (PINUM) daily.

Though the contractor completed the task of laying sewer in a month or so, he did not rehabilitate the road into its original condition prior to start of the project and left the site without handing over carpeted road to the authorities concerned after accomplishment and since then the road has become a hub of miseries to locals as well as visitors.

The PINUM is the sole facility of its kind in the district providing complete diagnostic opportunities beside radiotherapy and chemotherapy and surgery treatments to patients of nearby localities and cities and a large number of affected people visit it regularly.

Besides Allied Hospital, Income Tax Complex and offices of district labour department, Water and Sanitation Agency, Zarai Taraqiati Bank Limited and Punjab Medical College are other key spots situated on this road.

Ironically, the traffic police are allowing heavy traffic to travel on the available single side of the dual carriageway but adequate number of staffers have not been deputed there to control and maintain traffic flow, which leads to frequent yet severe jams.

Owing to these traffic jams, heavy vehicles have started using access roads passing through Mustafaabad locality in the vicinity and this practice alone is posing great threat to dwellers.

Allah Ditta, a resident of Mustafaabad, said that because of increasing traffic density on roads passing through the populated area, they have been forced to restrict their children inside their homes to avoid any eventuality.

He said that a few children had sustained minor but multiple injuries during last few days after being hit by speeding vehicles who take these access roads to evade routine traffic mess on the main road.

Bilal Ahmed, a doctor of the Allied Hospital, said the neglected road spoke volumes of the performance of the government and its allied departments. He said the officials concerned had been asked a numbers of times to get the road rehabilitated, but to no avail.

Another major problem the people are facing is unavailability of public transport on this road, which gives commuters, especially rickshaw drivers, an opportunity fleece passengers intending to reach the health facilities or other key offices by charging fares according to their desire.

Khalid Mehmood, an attendant of an injured admitted at Allied Hospital, said his brother had encountered a mishap and they had to reach the hospital by foot because of the traffic mess.