LDA battle for signal-free project

LAHORE
After receiving the Supreme Court’s decision suspending the detailed judgment of the Lahore High Court on the Jail Road signal-free project, the legal wing of the Lahore Development Authority (LDA) has started its preparations for the final battle of arguments to be taken in the Supreme Court on June 2, 2015.
In its order, Supreme Court said “The interim order passed by this court dated May 14, 2015 shall continue to be in force and whatever part of the detailed judgment is not in consonance with the injunction order passed by the learned high court, which has been referred to in our order dated May 14, 2015 to that extent the detailed judgment shall stand suspended.” LDA sources said the authority had internally decided to re-launch the project after the Supreme Court gives a final decision. They said a meeting was called in LDA in which this was decided that though the Supreme Court had suspended LHC’s both short and detailed decisions over this project, the authority should not kick off construction work until the matter was decided by the Supreme Court. The LDA officials said signal-free project included construction of a 7km long signal-free corridor from Qartaba Chowk, Jail Road to Liberty Roundabout, Main Boulevard, Gulberg, at a cost of Rs1.3 billion. Completion target of this project was four months. Officials said that two underpasses and seven signal-free U-turns would be constructed under this project. They said the first underpass would be constructed at Shadman Chowk for traffic coming from China Chowk and going to Shadman Market whereas the other underpass would be constructed near Sherpao Bridge for traffic plying going towards Canal Bridge. Seven signal-free U-turns will be constructed at Eden Centre Chowk, Shadman Chowk, PIC Chowk, Canal Road, Zafar Ali Khan Road, Fawara Chowk, Main Market Chowk and Zahoor Elahi Chowk crossings.