The completion of the interchange continues to be delayed as the work is being down on a slow pace, causing inconvenience to residents of the twin cities.
The Rs.5 billion interchange project was being constructed at the junction of Kashmir Highway and 9th avenue equally shared by federation and the Punjab governments.
The construction work on the interchange has badly disrupted the flow of traffic. Thousands of vehicles ply each day.
Aslam Khan a taxi driver told APP that to reach Peshawar Mor from 9th avenue; he has to take a long turn form Karachi Company via FDE and PWD.
In addition to motorists, office goers and students, residents of sector G-9 also facing immense difficulties because the electricity supply is frequently suspended.
“The residents of this sector have become accustomed to hours without electricity because the construction work causes faults in electricity supply,” said Ali Hamza, a resident of G-9/3 sector.
Siddiq Abbasi, a shopkeeper at Peshawar Mor said that whenever IESCO office is contacted for the registration of a complaint, they are told that transmission lines are being laid at the construction site.
A senior official of Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) admitted that completion of the interchange at Peshawar Mor has faced delays.
“The interchange is not directly a party of the metro bus project, which is why we did not focus on it in the first phase. Now our full attention is on the interchange,” he said.
Interchange Project in-charge Waseem Tariq said that the total length of the underground, overhead and ramp roads was 14-kilometres with a width of one-and-a-half kilometer. As many as eight fly over and many roads will be part of the project, he said that low relaxation imported steel has been used in girders and their life span will be over 100 years.
Rafiq Tanoli, an old citizen passing through the site, said that the government was eager to inaugurate the metro bus service but since then it should have expedited work on the project as it is much delayed.
“The contractor seems to have been left to his own devices,” he said.
A senior CDA official, who is part of a coordination team between CDA and Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA), told that initially the metro bus project, including Peshawar Mor Interchange, was supposed to be completed by December 2014.
“However, overall the project faced delays due to many reasons,” he said.
Later, it was announced that the interchange would be completed by March 23 but no progress was made, he said.
“Now the project is likely to be completed by February end but looking at the pace of work, it appears that even this deadline would be missed,” he added.
