LAHORE: Government has begun the process of land acquisition for the 17km-long stretch of the Lahore Ring Road’s Southern Loop-IV, an important portion of the corridor that will connect Multan Road with Lahore-Karachi motorway and Sharaqpur, crossing the River Ravi.

The process began after imposition of section-4 of the Land Acquisition Act—a mandatory legal formality to acquire the private land for the project if executed in the public interest, Dawn has learnt.

“The route of the ring road’s SL-4 starts from the end point of SL-3, Maraka (Multan Road). From here, it will move ahead, cross the Ravi and connect the Lahore-Karachi motorway and Sharaqpur, squeezing travel time to this town from Multan Road from one and a half hour to maximum 15 minutes. The portion would also help the commuters to reach Jaranwala in one hour (maximum),” a senior official of the Lahore Ring Road Authority (LRRA) explained while talking to Dawn on Thursday.

The government had earlier on March 19 approved construction of Ring Road SL-III, directing the authorities concerned to get it executed within a year. The work on 8km-long SL-III, which starts from Adda Plot (Raiwind Road) and ends at Maraka (Multan Road) via Bahria Town, was stalled for the last couple of years due to litigation over land acquisition between the government and a known housing scheme. However, the LRRA finally succeeded in retrieving the land after demolishing 73 houses on Oct 9, last year in a day-long operation. At present, the LRRA is set to start the bidding process afresh that was earlier completed but marred by the litigation over the land acquisition in the area of Bahria Town.

The official said, the government under the plan, would acquire as many as 4,000 kanals for the SL-IV. “Since the landowners cannot carry out any construction, development on their land under section-4, the government is trying to complete this process within the shortest possible time. So the planning & development department has been asked to ensure provision of Rs5 billion for the land acquisition for SL-IV. The construction cost of this portion is Rs20 billion,” he maintained.

Like other portions of the ring road, SL-4 too will be constructed under the public-private partnership (PPP) mode and on the build, operate and transfer (BoT) basis that means the government will only contribute a meager amount as viability gap financing (VGF). “A major chunk of the land would be invested by the private firm that would recover its money with certain profit through toll collection at interchanges from motorists in several years,” he said.

He said the SL-IV faced no hindrances, as there were only a few structures (houses etc) on its route.

He said the SL-IV was considered to be very important in view of an “economic boom” in Lahore and its adjoining districts.

The LRRA, he said, wanted to complete the entire land acquisition and bidding process for this portion by year end and start construction work in January next, hoping it would be ready by June, 2020 if the work on it was carried out on fast track without any bottlenecks.

About the Ring Road’s last portion -- western loop -- the official said work on it was also likely to start next year.

“The western loop also starts from Multan Road and runs along the River Ravi, finally touching the Babu Sabu. After completion of western loop, the entire 180km -long ring road will be complete,” he said.

Published in Dawn, March 29th, 2019