I am a school van driver and have to pick up and drop school-going children from different villages regularly. The students have to move to their city for higher education but this is nothing less than frustrating as the roads leading from the local villages to their local city are in a pathetic state and have been under construction for around 10 years. Mainly, Shah Jamal road and Chiniot Pindi Bhattian roads are in such a dilapidated condition as sometimes it becomes difficult for vehicles to move a single step on due to patches on road. It is really very perturbing, said one of the drivers.
So, people of different professions including businessmen, office staff, school-going students and other passers-by are in great exasperation. This has resulted in gross inconvenience to the locals who are working hard to earn bread and butter. People also feel immensely embarrassed to take any visitors over such shabby roads.
From a local source, it has been noted that people had requested and protested many times but the MNA’s and the concerned authorities turned a deaf ear to the poor state of the rural road network in Punjab. However, now that Usman Buzdar is the Chief Minister of Punjab, things have not improved much either, at least in this field.
To quote an example, the Pindi Bhattian-Chiniot road connects Chiniot to the motorway and is only 30 km long, however, it has been under construction for the last 10 years and there are no signs of it being completed any time soon.
Similarly, another offshoot from the motorway leads to Chiniot via Sial-Mor; however, this too has been under construction for a similar period, despite being merely 30km in length; and its completion is also nowhere in sight.
May I request the Chief Minister Punjab to overlook political considerations and award the contract to either NLC or FWO for speedy completion of these under-construction roads so that the sufferings of the people are mitigated? It is said that Sharifs are good administrators; then where is the difference?
