RAWALPINDI The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has suspended provision of loan to the multi-billion Rawalpindi Environment Improvement Project (REIP) owing to slow pace of work and lack of interest on part of the officials concerned.

Sources told Dawn on Saturday that the ADB, which financially supports the project, had refused to provide loan to the executors since February leaving the project virtually at a standstill. This is for the first time that the bank has refused to fund the project.

The environment project was initiated in 2006 and is supposed to be completed in June 2011; however, according to sources, about 70 per cent of work still remained incomplete.

The sources said the management of the ADB was annoyed over the slow pace of work at various segments of the project, adding different components that were supposed to be completed in 2009 were still incomplete.

Chairman coordination committee Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) Sardar Nasim confirmed that the bank had suspended loan to the project. However, he hoped that the funding would be restored soon.

'I am personally in negotiations with the bank to restore funding. Once the loan is restored, I will ask the officials to explain the reasons for the delay in completion of the project,' Mr Nasim added.

A spokesman for REIP told Dawn that chairman Planning and Development (P&D) Punjab Sami Saeed would soon start negotiations with the ADB for restoring financial assistance to the project.

At present, the contractors have abandoned work due to non-payment by executors of REIP after ADB stopped the loan resulting in a sanitation mess in the city. One can see excavation and digging on a large scale along major roads that have been left halfway.

The sources said some contractors had intimidated to the officials of ADB that government officials involved in the execution of the project were demanding 'heavy commissions' from them during bidding process.

It may be mentioned that since the launch of the project in 2006, the Punjab government has changed four project directors on corruption charges.

The Rs5.14 billion project is aimed at making drastic improvement in the city's sewerage and water supply networks in order to avert the increasing threat of water-borne diseases.

The executors of the project have so far made no progress on the sewage side of the project including the installation of the proposed sewage treatment plant and replacing the 60-year-old pipelines.

The Rawal Town council has already expressed reservations over the environment project arguing that the residents of the city would be taxed heavily for returning the hefty loan to the bank.