Leh Expressway consultancy accord to be signed this week

Rawalpindi: The Punjab government wants speedy progress on the Nullah Leh Expressway project to ease traffic in Rawalpindi city and the city administration would award a contract this week to a firm to prepare design and feasibility report.

Talking to this agency on Wednesday, Commissioner Rawalpindi Division Captain (r) Saqib Zafar said: “We are very close to award a contract to a firm to prepare design and feasibility report of Nullah Leh project. We have opened the bids, submitted by the consultants. Out of nine firms, six bids were submitted for the Nullah Leh project which had been opened during first week of September and currently under evaluation process, he informed.”

He expressed the hope that the consultancy for Nullah Leh project would be handed over to a firm this week. Nullah Leh would be a Public Private Partnership (PPP) mode project, he added.

He said the work was accelerated by the incumbent government to kick off Leh Expressway project. He said, the Expressway would start from the Soan Bridge, instead of Ammar Chowk in Chaklala, to facilitate maximum population, adding the project would change fate of the citizens, particularly living along the Leh Nullah.

“The government is working to permanently resolve the issue of flooding in Nullah Leh,” he said. To a question he said, the Ring Road would be a game-changer project for Rawalpindi city. He said, a consultancy firm was finalized last week. The firm would take nearly four months to complete the design and feasibility report of the project, he added.