CDA, motorists look towards Wapda for relief

Islamabad :The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has almost completed its job on the Sohan Inter-Change. May be another week’s time and the eagerly awaited opening of the inter-change could be thrown open and the ‘bottle-neck traffic signal’ at Sohan chowk could be removed. Providing great relief to the motorists travelling up and down this part of the Islamabad Expressway!

But there is a glitch!

The three poles carrying electricity transmission lines of Wapda fall right inside one of the links, thus effectively preventing the CDA to accomplish the dream of completing this segment of the project on the revised deadline.

So, the Wapda or the IESCO can not only make the lives of people miserable through load-shedding or heavy fluctuations but can bring them down to their knees in many other ways as well!

The Chairman of the CDA, Sheikh Anser Aziz, who also is the elected Mayor of Islamabad, said that he was in contact with the top boss of Wapda (or maybe IESCO), asking them to re-locate these electric power poles as soon as possible.

It is obvious that Sheikh Ansar Aziz has not asked Wapda yesterday, the last week or the last month. The CDA had shared the designs and had asked the Wapda to shift electricity poles from the construction area when the work started on the project.

However, because of some inexplicable reasons Wapda or the IESCO has still not moved on the request, which now seems will cause a further delay in completing and opening this fly-over at Sohan.

“I visited the site last week and then I spoke with the head of IESCO to discuss early re-location of these poles, which are hindering our work. Also because this is causing a lot of problems to the public in the adjacent areas as well as hindering the smooth flow of traffic at this point,” Sheikh Anser Aziz said while talking to ‘The News’.

“I am quite hopeful that they will relocate these poles soon. I am scheduled to pay another visit to the site sometime next week. I believe by the time this job would have been done,” The CDA Chairman said.

Meanwhile, the Project Director, Engineer Mumtaz Hussain, said that over 90 per cent work on this segment of the project has been completed.

“The concrete reinforcing on the girders of the bridge has been completed and now the work is simultaneously going on the side-railing of the bridge and black-topping of the link roads and the loops,” Engineer Mumtaz Hussain told ‘The News’.

“As soon as the IESCO people will relocate these power poles, it would not take us more than a week to complete the project in all respects and open it for traffic movement in all directions and the ‘U-turn and traffic signal’ at Sohan T-Chowk will be closed,” the Project Director added.

Once the traffic signal at Sohan will be removed, there will be only one signal left on the Islamabad Highway from T-Chowk on GT Road right up to Faisal Chowk on the Khayaban-e-Iqbal (Margalla Road).

Engr Mumtaz Hussain said that the work on the next phase of this segment of the ‘5-lane Signal Free Corridor’ from Rawat to Khayaban-e-Iqbal is also progressing smoothly. “It is a bigger interchange that we are building at ‘Khanna Chowk’. It would be similar to the one we have built at ‘Karal Chowk’. Most of the girders for this part of the project have already been prepared and the earth-work on the loops is also going on. Soon the machinery will be moved to start raising the pillars of the bridge as well,” the Project Director said.