LAHORE: The Punjab government has decided to launch construction of the Lahore Ring Road’s Southern Loop-3 (SL-3) within the next few months since the cabinet has approved the Rs17.798 billion PC-I of the scheme paving way for the release of funds under the Annual Development Programme of the next fiscal.

The project has been stuck in litigation since 2016 due to alleged intervention of a ‘powerful’ real estate tycoon.

An official source told Dawn the scheme would now be completed by the government with its own financial resources instead of executing it under the Public-Private Partnership (PPP) mode — a model worked out and finalized previously.“Now we have been given a go-ahead for launching the construction work,” the official said on the condition of anonymity.

He said the government had already acquired land for the project and paid entire compensation of Rs4.5 billion to the landowners/affectees, including those whose houses were constructed on the route of the SL-3 passing through Bahria Town.

It was delayed due to litigation

He said since the entire land acquired for the project has been mutated in the name of the government, the LRRA would face no hurdle in taking the work in hand.

He said the LRRA will soon start bidding and other preparatory works to award the project to an eligible firm through a competitive bidding process. He said the government also seems interested in the construction of the Ring Road’s SL-4, which starts from Maraka (Multan Road) and connects the Lahore-Karachi motorway.

Similarly, he said, a western loop has also been planned to connect the ring road with the Lahore-Islamabad Motorway (M-2).

He said though the last stay order had been vacated since April 2021, the PTI government in Punjab avoided giving the authority a go-ahead to commence construction.

The SL-3 starts from Adda Plot on Raiwind Road and ends at Maraka on Multan Road, passing through Bahria Town.

Earlier, it was to be constructed at Rs10 billion under the PPP mode on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. The project cost was supposed to be recovered by the contractors through toll from motorists within 25 years. The first contract of the project had been signed and awarded to a leading private firm for Rs8bn, which also took part in the construction of Orange Line train (Package-1) in 2016. However, when an LRRA team reached the site in August 2016 to make way through Bahria Town by breaking a boundary wall, its security officials offered resistance and tried to block the team’s way.

In the meanwhile, the housing scheme’s administration and others dragged the government in litigation and obtained a stay order despite the fact that a compensation of around Rs550 million had been deposited with the court’s treasury as per its directions.

In 2017, the court vacated the stay order. However, the aggrieved parties, mainly the housing project/group, again got a stay by filing an intra-court appeal. The stay was again vacated in 2018.

In October 2018, a joint team of the LRRA, city district administration and police retrieved a major chunk of the land from the housing scheme, paving the way for construction work. Led by the then commissioner Dr Mujtaba Piracha and former deputy commissioner retired Capt Anwarul Haq, the team, during the operation had demolished 73 houses, four plazas and other buildings to clear the way.

In 2018, when the authority was about to start construction the then PTI-led Punjab government decided to restart the bidding process, blaming its predecessors for not ensuring transparency in the process. This further delayed the construction work.

The bidding process was again completed in 2019 and the project was awarded to the National Logistics Cell for Rs10bn. An agreement was also signed on June 13. However, surprisingly, the court again granted a stay on June 26, 2020, at a time when the LRRA was about to start the construction. But the matter was resolved on March 30, 2021 enabling the authority to start the work. But the LRRA couldn’t do so after the government covertly stopped it.

To another question, he said the SL-3 was 8km long six-lane dual carriageway having two interchanges, seven flyovers (bridges), four service road bridges (single span), three vehicluer subways.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2023