A few weeks ago, the Government of Punjab (GoP) started re-carpeting of Rawal road connecting Murree road with airport road, Rawalpindi. In its previous shape, Rawal road only required a good quality patch work. Nevertheless, GoP got the brainwave to re-carpet the whole road.
It’s worthwhile to mention here that this re-carpeting brought untold miseries to the commuters. One, the re-carpeting would commence at a time when there was rush of office goers thus blocking the road resulting into agonisingly long lines, wastage of time and petrol and two resulted in utter chaos and frustration on the return journey from offices. This re-carpeting compounded the woes of the commuters on return journey from Islamabad to Rawalpindi because correspondingly, Koral Chowk on Islamabad Expressway is still under construction.
On knowing that the re-carpeting has been completed, I drove today on a test drive. To my utter surprise, I found the recently re-carpeted road in a much worse condition than what it was before. Bottom line: the GoP and the RDA could not match the excellent work done by NLC when the Rawal road was initially built.
Last but not the least: the worst technical mistake was that the re-carpeting was initiated in severe winter months. Who pocketed the kickback for the worst quality of road construction is any one’s guess!
Talaat Khurshid
Rawalpindi
