LAHORE: The Lahore Development Authority on Tuesday suspended the contract of one of the Orange Line contractors, accusing him of working on a slow pace on the project, taking over his site offices.

According to Project Director Mazhar Khan, the pace of work was too slow to be tolerated, given the urgency of the project.

`The contractor was working on 800 blocks at a cost of Rs18 billion. However, he could show progress only on 16 blocks during the last four months. With this pace, he could have taken over five years to finish the work, Mr Khan said.

This was unacceptable for the project authorities, who took action on Tuesday evening, he said.

This prompted a notice from the LDA and the contractor was asked to stop work, remove his men and machinery from the site as his contract was cancelled.

However, the LDA, instead of waiting for the contractor to vacate sites, acted in a hurry and took over his site offices with the help of police by evening.