Canal Road underpass project misses deadline.

FAISALABAD -- Construction work on the Kashmir Underpass on Canal Road is still incomplete while the deadline of the project has passed in November.

The Faisalabad Development Authority (FDA) along with other departments is carrying out the project whose only 40pc work has been completed. The project was launched by the previous government to facilitate thousands of motorists who commute on the road and face traffic problems.

The project worth of Rs1.28bn was handed over to the FDA and it was launched in January 2018. The government had allocated a portion of funds for this project; however, the current government halted the funds, which ultimately stopped the entire construction work.

Akram Ali, who runs a business on Canal Road, says the citizens are suffering as the government has failed to execute the underpass project timely and it not paying heed to repeated demands of the people to complete it. He complains that a lot of customers avoid visiting the business establishments on the road due to the delay.

FDA seeks seven more months for the completion of the road

'We still don't know when the project will be completed,' he adds.

Realising that pace of the project is slow, Deputy Commissioner Muhammad Ali has visited the site multiple times and given assurances that the construction work would be completed quickly; however, sources say the contractors have not yet completed fifty per cent work. They say the project would take more than five to six months more as paucity of funds has delayed it.

Due to funds shortage, they say, the project remains halted and nobody is bothered to resume the work, resulting in miseries for the masses living in the colonies along the road. They say slow pace of work has also been badly hitting the economic activities along the road where scores of marriage halls, business centres and other...