Punjab CM assures to take up stalled project of Rawalpindi Ring Road

Islamabad: Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar Sunday while pointing to the sad state of affairs in the province said his priority was the uplift of the neglected areas, focus on provision of basic facilities and taking up of stalled development projects.

Talking to this agency at the oath-taking ceremony of President Arif Alvi here at the Aiwan-e-Sadr, the chief minister said the Punjab government would direct resources to all sectors and all areas of the province without any discrimination.

When asked about the numerous vital development projects that were shelved by the previous PML-N government including the decades old Rawalpindi Ring Road project, he said he was in the process of getting detailed briefings about different sectors and pointed that he was dismayed to note the sad state of affairs. He said all projects that were of public importance would be taken up on priority; when informed that Rawalpindi was the only major city in the province that did not have a ring road and the entire heavy Karachi to Peshawar heavy traffic had to traverse through the cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad.

The Chief Minister was also apprised of the fact that the shifting of the Islamabad International Airport to its new location outside the city was causing severe problems to the people who had to take long detours to reach the airport. The construction of the proposed Rawalpindi Ring Road from Rawat to the Thalian interchange of M-2 motorway would felicitate the thousands of people from Azad Jammu and Kashmir, Gujrat, Jhelum and adjoining areas, and lessen load on existing roads.

Governor Punjab Ghulam Sarwar, who was attending the event, also assured to look into the longstanding demand of the people of the area and said he would definitely play his part in helping ameliorate the sufferings of the commuters.

The Rawalpindi Ring Road project was conceived in 1991 to divert heavy traffic out of the city, despite several design changes and feasibility studies and was yet to see the light of the day, while the commuters on the Islamabad Expressway, IJ Principal and GT road had to daily bear the agony of long delays due to frequent traffic jams, breakdown of heavily loaded trucks; leading to wasting of precious fuel and time.