RAWALPINDI: It has taken the Rawalpindi commissioner, Azmat Mehmood, two months to realise that the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) has worked slowly in its project to construct three roads in the city.

The road construction project was inaugurated by Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan in June 2015, but it was this Thursday that Mr Mehmood found that work had been moving slowly due to negligence on the part of RDA officials.

RDA spokesperson Hafiz Muhammad Irfan told Dawn that Mr Mehmood visited Adiala Road, Lahore High Court (LHC) Rawalpindi Bench Road and Double Road (Stadium Road), and inspected ongoing engineering work by the authority.

He said the commissioner expressed displeasure over the slow pace of work.

`He also warmed Director Engineering Mohammad Akram Soban and DeputyDirector Engineering Mohammad Husnain to supervise the project professionally and assure its timely completion,` the spokesperson said.

RDA began working on the main roads which includes Ch Bostan Khan Road, worth Rs 250 million, Double Road in Shamsabad, worth Rs150 million, and the reconstruction of Adiala Road from Kalyal to Gorakhpur at a cost of Rs280 million in June last year.

Work was supposed to be completed in six months, but RDA officials blamed slow funding from the provincial government for the pace. `The worl< started late, and Wasa was also assigned to lay water supply lines in the area, which delayed the project,` an RDA official said.

He said the quality of construction of these projects was also discussed, but the commissioner wanted the projects completed as early as possible to deal with traffic problems.

`Senior officials of the district and divisional management were trapped in traffic for an hour a couple of days ago, andthe traffic police said development work on various roads and VIP routes were the main reason, which prompted the commissioner to inspect the sites,` the of ficial said.

Under construction roads have indeed inconvenienced residents and motorists, who not only have to deal with traffic jams but also waterlogged areas due to construction waste dumped on either side of the roads.

Mohammad Riaz, a resident of the Gulraiz Housing Society, said the main road which connects Chaklala Scheme-IH to the LHC was used by residents of various housing societies, such as Yousaf Colony, Ayub Colony, Nayyar Colony, Bahria Town and others, and traffic was particularly congested during school and office timings.

Shahid Malik, a resident of Double Road, said it would be difficult for pedestrians to cross the under construction drains along the roads. He said there were no alternate routes to the under construction road.