BAHAWALPUR: The non-completion of the building of Bahawalpur railway station has been a constant source of inconvenience for passengers for the last two years.

They demanded that Federal Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid take notice of the issue.

The Rs2.1 billion project was to be completed in April this year.

Contractor National Logistics Cell, whose site engineer Arshad Ghumman did not respond to Dawn’s phone calls on Thursday, is now likely to miss the second deadline in December.

The project, inaugurated in June 2016, was to be completed within one year. First, some technical faults delayed the inauguration of the work.

Consultant firm Nespak’s site engineer Muhammad Irfan said that finishing work was at the final stage. He said three or four months were required for the completion of the building.

According to him, work on the building would be completed by March 2019 and after that it would be handed over to the railways.

He said three domes, considered as an important and essential part of the new building, could not be constructed due to some technical complications .The domes were added to the design afterwards to depict Islamic identity and culture of Bahawalpur region. He said that the downside platform had been re-built by the the railways engineering department and opened for passengers recently.

Mr Irfan said that even after the completion of flooring, electrification and furnishing, adequate time could be required to work on the elevated part of the building facing the city.

So far, the down platform is without a proper cover to protect passengers from the sun, rain and cold in the winter season. They also suffered the scorching heat in the last summer because of no shade or cover on the platform.

Dawn learned the railways engineering section also completed the re-built of ML-1(Main Line –One) at the Bahawalpur railway station to meet the required standards for the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.

Published in Dawn, November 16th, 2018