RAWALPINDI:
With just 14 days left for the end of 2025, work on some long-pending major projects in Rawalpindi, including the Leh Expressway and Children’s Hospital, could not begin in the current year.
However, three road infrastructure projects of the Punjab government were completed in Rawalpindi in the past year.
Work on the Kachehri Chowk megaproject is underway and is expected to be completed by March 2026, along with three additional underpasses.
In the new year, construction work on another viaduct and an underpass will begin. Road infrastructure projects worth over Rs 30 billion undertaken by the Punjab government are expected to be completed in the coming year.
The year also saw the launch of electric bus service for the people of Rawalpindi. Meanwhile, the Rawalpindi ring road project worth Rs50 billion is expected to be completed in the new year.
According to sources, only two road infrastructure projects related to the development of Rawalpindi were completed this year, including the Nawaz Sharif flyover at Khawaja Corporation Chowk on Adiala Road and the underpasses at TM Chowk and GPO Chowk on Mall Road.
The construction work of three underpasses and a flyover at Kachehri Chowk, which began on November 3 this year, is now expected to be completed by March or April next year.
In the new year, construction of underpasses at Race Course Chowk, Qabristan Chowk and Charing Cross Chowk on Peshawar Road will also begin, with a completion time of three months. Additionally, a new flyover will be constructed at Ammar Shaheed Chowk, where an underpass already exists.
Work on the Rawalpindi Ring Road, which has been underway for three years, is 75 percent complete. Officials said the project would be completed by the last week of March next year.
In the new year, plans were also approved to start projects including expansion of an additional lane on a two-kilometre stretch of Murree Road from Liaquat Bagh to Chandni Chowk, and construction of an underpass on Ninth Avenue Chowk on IJP Road.
However, progress could not go beyond the preparation of a PC-I of Rs9.5 billion for the long-pending Lai Expressway and Flood Channel project, as well as the conversion of the long-unfinished Mother and Child Hospital into a children’s hospital.
Although the Punjab government transferred the unfinished Mother and Child Hospital project from the federal government and approved the PC-I of Rs 9.5 billion to grant it the status of a 400-bed children’s hospital, work on the project has not started this year.
Similarly, despite laying the foundation stone of the Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplantation in Rawalpindi in 2012, kidney and liver transplant procedures could not be initiated in Rawalpindi.
Although the project has since been transferred to PKLI Lahore, emergency OPD and dialysis facilities are currently available at PKLI Rawalpindi.
