Ferozpur Road in Lahore has been undergoing (ill)planned surgery for the last five years, wasting tax money and time. The road has seen many renovations at different sections in the name of reconstruction and restoration of an old drainage. The digging for better drainage system from Qartaba Chowk to LOS has surfaced to be the worst example.
The ongoing digging on the road not only is causing massive nuisance for motorists but also troubling pedestrians due to debris and construction prevailing on the strip. Sources said that Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (Tepa) excavated the road to reconstruct an old 300 meter long part of the defunct roadside drain in order to restore the sewerage system of the area. They further said that restoration of the drain is result of change in plan by the provincial government which earlier intended to build a flyover at Qartaba Chowk with an estimated cost of Rs 3billion in order to make it signal free.
Sources disclosed that the government cancelled the plan of constructing such proposed flyover in order to save billions of rupees.
Earlier, Tepa and other departments started digging different parts of newly constructed Ferozpur Road which were cracking and deforming just after a couple of weeks perhaps because of substandard material used in the project by the construction process.
The sources informed this scribe that earlier, the contractors started patchwork at affected areas of the road in order to hide faulty construction of the road as well as for covering their incapability and performance.
“They had to start patchwork at the road because cracks were appearing at different points of the road which not only were spreading but also were de-shaping the physical appearance of one of the major”, they added.
They said that besides repairing road, they also had to reconstruct the manholes in the middle of the road from Mazang to Ichra as unleveled manholes were causing disturbance in traffic flow while others were chocked during the construction of Metro Bus Service track.
They said that the government awarded the contract for the re-construction and restoration of the Ferozpur Road to blue-eyed companies of the country and different government departments as well after completion of the MBS project.
Although, the companies were being given task to construct road but their expert engineers failed to lay sound foundation for such new road, they said, adding that inefficient engineers focused to meet deadline given by the government for completing the project instead of focusing on the quality of work.
“Billions of rupees were being wasted in the name of construction of Ferozpur Road which was constructed some month before launching of the Metro Bus Service and the practice of construction and destruction of the road continued on personal liking and disliking of the Punjab Chief Minister and Ferozpur Road remained the most focused road even during his previous tenure regarding development”, they concluded.