RAWALPINDI: A team from a Chinese company will visit the garrison city tomorrow (Monday) to begin working on a study laying a track for the Rawalpindi-Islamabad circular train along the proposed Leh Nullah Expressway.

Federal and provincial governments and the China Civil Engineering Construction Company (CCECC) have decided to begin the feasibility study for the circular railway project along with the Leh Nullah Expressway project.

The company will carry out the study on the cost of running a train between the twin cities for free from the Soan River near the Rawalpindi bench of the Lahore High Court (LHC) to Kashmir Highway in Islamabad. It will undertake the preliminary study on the feasibility of the project, which includes the assessment of its technical, legal, financial and commercial viability.

A train service between the two cities was also planned during the Musharraf regime, but the PML-N government halted work on this project and began its own project to run the metro bus service.

After two years, the provincial government is still considering different options to begin the Leh Expressway project.

“There are two proposals regarding the start of the project, including giving land allocated for a sewage treatment plan in Adiala to a private land development to earn money in return for its investment in the project, or two cover Leh Nullah from New Kattarian to Soan River near the LHC Rawalpindi bench to start commercial activities and a private investor will earn money from these commercial plazas,” a senior Rawalpindi Development Authority official told Dawn.

The official said the Punjab law department did not give a legal opinion on the plan to give land for the sewage treatment plant to a private investment in exchange for investment in the expressway project in the form of a public-private partnership.

A project proposal has been made but has not been submitted to the Punjab Public Private Partnership Authority because of the absence of the law department’s opinion.

He said the shortage of funds was the main problem in the project, which was why the RDA made a proposal to begin the project in the mode of a public-private partnership.

The Punjab government does not have the money to begin the project because of financial crises, he said.

The Leh Expressway was launched in March 2007 and inaugurated by then president Gen Pervez Musharraf. Its total cost was Rs20 billion.

The Frontier Works Organisation was awarded the contract and it started the work on the site to complete it in two years.

However, work on the project was stopped during the 2008 general election and did not resume because of the PML-N provincial government’s apprehension that its completion would benefit party defector Sheikh Rashid Ahmed, the project’s architect.

Published in Dawn, August 16th, 2020