RAWALPINDI: Finally, the bridge on Soan River has been opened for traffic after 48 days of repair work on a section that collapsed on June 26, disrupting traffic between Rawat and Kutchery Chowk.

Since the repair work continued on a small part of the collapsed bridge for more than one-and-a-half months, thousands of commuters, especially residents of Defence Housing Authority, Bahria Town and other housing societies, had to face unexplained ordeal which partially ended on Independence Day with the opening of the bridge.

Heavy traffic had been diverted to the old Airport Road from Rawat since the section of the bridge collapsed while light traffic was put on an adjacent bridge. Travelers remained stuck in long queues of vehicles, sometimes due to traffic jams and sometimes due to slow movement of vehicles.

The widening of the bridges started in 2017 and was scheduled to be completed in January 2022. However, it is still in progress and likely to complete in 2024 because officials concerned said monsoon was hampering the construction work.

An expatriate, Aftab Ahmed, said it took more than one-and-a-half months to repair a damaged part of the bridge. Such a repair work takes less than a week in other countries such as Dubai or China and in the meantime the commuters are provided an alternative.

The National Highway Authority (NHA) awarded the contract to the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) after a previous contractor was blacklisted due to multiple reasons.

Published in Dawn, August 15th, 2023