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Work on Islamabad expressway projects likely to miss completion deadline

ISLAMABAD:Work on the two-kilometre portion of Expressway from Korang Bridge to PWD Interchange is likely to miss the deadline of June this year and it could be extended for three months. Last year, the CDA had awarded the contract to Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) for widening of the road including construction of a Railway bridge worth over Rs2 billion. CDA officials said that work was being executed as per scheduled and it will be completed within the deadline of June this year. However, they said that the Railway bridge (near PWD interchange) is a huge structure and it could take some extra time. “The project could be extended for two to three months,” said an engineer of CDA. He, however, said that extra efforts were being made to complete the work within this deadline. CDA official says extension of deadline not uncommon in projects with large amount of work “In such a huge amount of work, extension of a few months in contract is not a big deal. Our focus is quality as the expressway is a highly busy road, therefore, we do not want to complete it in a rash manner,” said an official and added that expansion of the road project will be comfortably complete by June this year. “But yes, the Railway bridge, which is part of this 2-km road project will take extra time. The eastern side of the bridge is near the completion stage and once it is completed then we will move towards the western side,” he said. It is relevant to note here that currently, three projects are in progress on the expressway from Korang Bridge to GT road. Furthermore, work on the second project, Korang bridge has also seen considerable delay. It was started in 2021 and was supposed to be completed in December 2021. However, a private contractor abandoned it halfway. Later on last year, the CDA engaged FWO for remainder work. Now, the bridge is being given final touches and it is said that in the next two months, it could be opened for traffic. Expansion from PWD to G.T. Road Under this portion, FWO is expanding the road from existing two lanes to four lanes, besides construction of two major bridges (Sohan and Binder) and work is in progress with full pace. CDA officials said that work could be completed within the deadline of June 2024. This project worth almost Rs11 billion was started last year and according to the PC-I of the project, it will be completed in 18 months. In last September, the CDA issued a commencement letter to the contractor, which was the main document to start the project. After the PWD, the four-lane Expressway narrows down to two lanes, causing bottlenecks and disrupting traffic on almost a daily basis. This is one of the main roads of the federal capital and caters to both light and heavy traffic, particularly plying between Islamabad and Lahore. Its widening was announced many times but last year it was formally started and currently, work on it is in progress. The two lane road is being widened to four lanes and once widening is completed the motorists, who face traffic congestion on a daily basis, will take a huge sigh of relief. Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2023
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