ISLAMABAD       -       The Capital Development Authority’s board has approved a tentative alignment of a 3.4km-long road in Sangjani to link the motorway with Islamabad’s Margalla Avenue and decided to send the proposal to the federal government as it involves changes into the master plan of Islamabad.

It is pertinent to mention here that out of the total 3.4km proposed road, 1.6km falls in the limits of Islamabad and 1.8km in Rawalpindi. The project was originally conceived several years ago but it had entered into serious discussions in 2021 when the projects of the Ring Road Rawalpindi and Margalla Avenue Islamabad were started.

It was decided by the Prime Minister in 2021 that the part of the link road falling in Islamabad’s limits would be acquired and developed by the CDA from its own resources and this would be connected with Rawalpindi Road leading to M-1 while the rest of the portion would be constructed by the Punjab government.

However, like Chirah Dam and many others joint projects planned to be executed by the administrations of the twin cities on sharing basis, it could not be run smoothly as well.

The matter is pending between CDA (Federal) and RDA (Punjab) for more than 2 years In a recent development, Commissioner Rawalpindi has sent a letter to the CDA Management last month and complained for not providing final alignment and requested to share the approved final alignment with RDA at the earliest to proceed further with the land acquisition process.

The CDA had engaged E-in-C Branch to prepare the alignment of said road and it has conveyed a tentative alignment of Link of GT Road (N-5) to Islamabad-Peshawar Motorway (M-1), which will have 150 feet wide Right of Way but the E-in-C Branch has yet to conduct topographic survey, detailed layout plan, geometric design and other things.

The CDA board as first instance on Thursday approved the said tentative alignment and decided to refer the matter towards the federal government for final approval as it involved amendment in the master plan. Meanwhile, the Planning Wing of the civic authority has also proposed to engage the National Highway Authority instead of RDA for the land acquisition on behalf of the Punjab government for better coordination and execution of this highly important project with CDA as both are the federal entities. The board has also agreed with this recommendation but a final decision in this regard would also be taken by the federal government.

The CDA is at present constructing a portion of Margalla Avenue from Sangjani on GT Road to D-12, where it will be linked with Khyaban-i-Iqbal. The aforementioned link road will link Margalla Avenue with the M-1 motorway in future. Sources in the board meeting informed that it was discussed that alignment of the road should be slightly changed to avoid the area of a nearby housing society. However, the meeting’s participants, after detailed discussion, decided to go with the already approved alignment. On the other hand, the board could not take up a summary seeking approval for the recently auctioned residential and commercial plots and the same would be tabled in the next board meeting.