RAWALPINDI: Following the Rs44.2 billion metro bus project, the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) will only launch two new projects in the city under the Punjab government`s annual development programme.

The RDA is the garrison city`s development authority, but its work is limited to small projects of road construction. In the current 2016-17 fiscal year, the RDA will launch a project to make Liaquat Bagh Square on Murree Road signal-free.

A senior RDA official told Dawn the provincial government has provided Rs10 million for a feasibility study of the project.

`After this, the RDA will take a year to start construction,` he added.

The other project that will begin under the annual development programme is the construction of a road in Rahimabad in NA-52, the RDA official said. Funding for the project has been released.

The official said the authority will also construct Tipu Road from Moti Mehal Cinema to Airport Road, for which the provincial government has allocated Rs250 million. He said the road`s construction was necessary following the construction of Airport Road, in order to improve the condition of the link road.

The official said the Punjab government also discovered faults in the construction of Adiala Road and Chaudhry Bostan Khan Road from Chaklala Scheme-III to LahoreHigh Court and asked the RDA`s engineering department to repair them.

The construction of the Adiala Road, worth Rs280 million, and Ch Bostan Khan Road, worth Rs250 million, was completed this June, and Rawalpindi Commission Azmat Mehmood took notice of the shoddy work on the roads. `MPA Chaudhry Sarfraz Afzal complained to Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif that the RDA did not make the road properly, and he ordered an inquiry into the matter,` an RDA official said.

He said in the meantime, the provincial government had asked the authority to repair the newly constructed roads, to prevent further complaints. `The provincial government released Rs6.7 million for repairs on Ch Bostan Khan Road and Rs8.6 million for repairs on Adiala Road,` the official said.

He said the authority`s engineering department had no work apart from these projects, adding that the RDA did not have the funds to reconstruct Saidpur Road, and other roads within its administrative control.

`The RDA`s planning department also failed to make plans for further development, and it was not possible for the provincial government to release funding,` he said.

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He said a feasibility report on the ring road project would begin soon, and that would also be constructed by the RDA, but added that the project itself would take time to launch.