Six more sites identified for establishing parking plazas in Rawalpindi.

RAWALPINDI: Six parking-cum-commercial plazas will be constructed in Rawalpindi city and cantonment areas to end traffic congestion and illegal parking on main roads.

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The district administration and Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) have been asked to start the building plan as soon as possible.

Talking to Dawn, Commissioner retired Capt Mohammad Mehmood said the divisional administration had selected six sites for construction of the plazas in Rawalpindi.

He said three storeys of each plaza would be allocated for parking of two and four-wheelers while three floors would be converted into shops.

“The basic idea is to use unutilized land for parking and commercial purposes. The local administration will generate money from renting out the shops and spend it on development works,” he said.

Mr. Mehmood formed a committee, comprising the deputy commissioner, RDA directors of engineering, architecture, finance, state land, metropolitan and traffic engineering.

The committee was given a task to make a feasibility study for the parking plazas after collecting data of traffic and bazaar visitors. Six sites have been selected and more will be selected in the coming days.

The selected sites are 17 kanals on City Saddar Road owned by Rawalpindi Metropolitan Corporation (RMC), six kanals at Banni Chowk market, eight kanals in Commercial Market Satellite Town, six kanals at Bagh Sardaran on Ghazni Road, Old GTS bus stand on Adamjee Road in Saddar and six kanals on Kutchery Chowk, Airport Road.

The committee will find new places in other parts of the city, especially around thickly-populated areas and commercial hubs, he said, adding state land would be given preference as the government would not procure new land from the market.

“All projects will be started on private-public partnership,” he said, adding private firms would be invited to invest in the projects.

“The structure will be owned by the government and the investors will get their money back from the profit of fees collected from the parking plazas within three to five years,” he said.

RDA also made a plan to increase three more floors of an existing parking plaza at Fawara Chowk. The parking plaza was constructed in 2010. Originally, the plaza was designed to be of six storeys but work on it was stopped after three floors due to a shortage of funds.

According to an RDA study, over 60,000 vehicles ply on roads around Fawara Chowk and parking arrangements for 1,200 vehicles were required.