Rawalpindi Ring Road: Federal decision-making forum puts forward two conditions

ISLAMABAD: While approving the proposed Rawalpindi ring road (RRR), the top decision-making federal forum has attached two important conditions that need to be fulfilled before starting the mega project.

The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC), which is headed by the prime minister and is presided over by his nominee, Adviser on Finance Shaukat Tarin in this case, has cleared the RRR – the main carriageway from Banth on the GT Road (N-5) to the Thallian interchange on the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway (M-2). The project will cost Rs23.606 billion with the condition of acquiring the concurrence of the Planning Commission and inclusion of axle load management in the project. The Punjab Annual Development Programme (ADP) will finance the project and the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) will execute it for the construction of a six-lane access-controlled RRR, 38.3km in length. Sometime back, the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) deliberated upon the RRR project.

“The launch of the construction work on the RRR is contingent upon meeting the two conditions set forth by the ECNEC,” an official told The News. “The CDWP had stated that the RRR project would be submitted to the ECNEC for approval after addressing the reservations and objections raised in its meeting. However, the case was presented to the ECNEC without doing so. The result is that the ECNEC has repeated what the CDWP had prescribed.”

The deputy chairman of the Planning Commission had raised important points in the CDWP meeting and urged their resolution. He had told the CDWP that the issue of axle load implementation must be addressed by the communications ministry on an urgent basis. He had stated that the issue of merger of RRR traffic with the M-2 is critical. “It needs to be worked out through a well-thought-out plan before the project can be placed before the ECNEC. The termination point of the RRR is the M-2, which is under a concession agreement [with the Frontier Works Organization or FWO],” he said, and directed that the National Highway Authority (NHA) and RDA to expeditiously work on this plan.

The CDWP had decided that a committee chaired by the additional secretary, ministry of communications, and comprising member (planning), NHA, Rawalpindi Commissioner/project director (PD), RRR, and member, engineering, Capital Development Authority (CDA), will finalize a detailed plan for the merger of the RRR traffic with the M-2 and its further flow towards other motorways and highways falling under the jurisdiction of the NHA and CDA. The jointly agreed plan will be submitted to the Ministry of Planning, Development and Special Initiatives (MoPD&SI) for examination and incorporation in the summary for ECNEC. The CDWP decided that the communications ministry and NHA should take requisite measures to implement the axle load limitations.

The deputy chief of the National Transport Research Centre (NTRC), representing the communications ministry, said that no overloaded trucks are allowed to ply on the motorways. Overloaded trucks are, however, using the national highways and are fined. He stated Punjab doesn’t have a legislation to control the axle load. Therefore, plying of overloaded trucks on the RRR cannot be limited. Stopping them at the Thallian interchange will be a difficult task, he said.

The official said that at present, 10,000 trucks and trailers are using the IJ Principal Road oin Islamabad. If this traffic is not diverted to the RRR, the economic benefits of the ring road will not be achieved. He stated that in case the axle load control regime is not implemented, the likelihood of commercial traffic will not be estimated in the traffic study report. He said that the inclusion of RRR traffic on the M-2 will greatly enhance the traffic volumes on the M-2 and M-1, which will seriously compromise their capacities. The RRR proposal doesn’t mention the capacity reduction of the operational motorways due to addition of RRR traffic. This issue needs to be settled with the concessionaire [FWO] of M-2.

The Chief of Transport and Communication, MoPD&SI, informed the CDWP that the communications ministry and NHA have not implemented the axle load regime on the N-5. There is a clear risk that the majority of the heavy traffic will not be plying on the RRR being axle load compliant, he pointed out. This traffic will prefer to continue its journey on the N-5 through the Rawalpindi city to avoid axle load checking. Such a situation will defeat the very purpose of the ring road’s construction which is to bypass traffic from Rawalpindi city to reduce congestion.