JARANWALA:
Within four months, a 13-foot-wide sinkhole has once again appeared on Sargodha Road, causing severe traffic disruption and raising doubts about the city’s infrastructure planning and inter-departmental coordination.
This is the second incident of this kind in recent months and highlights the ongoing problems in the region.
Sources at the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) said this was the ninth sinkhole to have occurred in urban areas of Faisalabad in the last decade.
The most recent sinkhole was caused by a leak in a 168-centimeter-diameter sewer line that was originally installed in 1983.
WASA Deputy Director Farhan Akram said the pipeline had exceeded its shelf life and should have been replaced by 2013 according to technical standards.
“Technical departments are required to replace underground infrastructure every three decades,” Akram explained.
The 40-year-old pipeline was dilapidated and had holes that led to severe water leaks, widespread seepage and eventual road collapse. The pipeline is about 14 kilometers long and stretches from Sheikhupura to Bawa Chak disposal station.
In particular, the section of Sargodha Road where the sinkhole occurred was repaired and resurfaced by the Road Authority in 2023.
Excavation and repair work is currently underway on the road and traffic is expected to resume soon. Akram pointed out that WASA had previously repaired a sinkhole in the same area and rehabilitated the road using Plain Cement Concrete (PCC) technology.
However, due to heavy traffic of dump trucks, the condition of the repaired road deteriorated rapidly, causing considerable inconvenience to commuters.
Akram also stressed that the Road Authority would be responsible for redesigning the road after the sinkholes are repaired, as the tender for the project is still ongoing.
“The Road Authority is the sole administrator of the road,” he said, adding that a formal letter would be sent to the authority instructing them to repair the road within two days.
Metropolitan Corporation (MC) Chief Officer Zubair Watto confirmed that while Sargodha Road is under the jurisdiction of the MC, the responsibility for its repair and maintenance lies with the Roads Department.
Watto further noted that the Punjab government had approved the establishment of the Traffic Engineering and Planning Agency (TEPA) under the Faisalabad Development Authority (FDA) in 2014.
TEPA was supposed to take over coordination between different engineering departments and development authorities to avoid duplication of work on roads and maintain development records. However, due to lack of funds and manpower, TEPA could not work effectively, resulting in uncoordinated development projects across the city.
Efforts to reach the highway department’s chief engineer, Rana Azhar Hussain, for comment were unsuccessful.
