LAHORE: Advisor to the Punjab Chief Minister and Lahore Orange Line Metro Train Project’s (LOMTP) Steering Committee Chairman Khawaja Ahmad Hassan on Sunday said that the efforts for the completion of the underground station for Orange Line Metro Train on The Mall had been geared up and GPO Chowk would reopen for the traffic by March 31.
While addressing the media, he said that the construction of an elevated track near Shalimar Gardens had also been completed after Gulabi Bagh and Buddhu’s Tomb on GT Road where construction work had earlier been stopped following a restraining order by the court.
He said that construction of 12 kilometers long elevated portion of the track in Package-1, from Dera Gujran to McLeod Road, was near completion as 652 out of the total 670 U-tub girders had so far been launched for construction of the viaduct for the train. The remaining girders would also be launched within two days for filling the 200 meters long gap near Lakshmi Chowk, he added.
He said that 2000 piles, out of a total of 2,300, had so far been constructed for the structure of GPO station and barrel-2 of the 1.7 kilometers long cut and cover portion of the track from McLeod Road to Chauburji. A retaining wall had also been constructed for the preservation of the tomb of Baba Mouj Derya situated near the track and work for fixing stones on the facade of Anarkali station had also commenced.
He further said that all 27 train sets for LOMTP had been dispatched to Pakistan from China out of which 19 had reached the country while the remaining eight were being shipped to Karachi.