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Malek Helali
Doha
The infrastructure and road projects that are being executed across the country are on the fast track, a top official of the Public Works Authority (Ashghal) has said.
"Ashghal is central to the delivery of Qatar's infrastructure projects for the Qatar 2030 national vision and the FIFA 2022 World Cup which is a major milestone in this journey. The authority is ready to meet the challenges," Engineer Mohammed Masoud al Marri, Director of Infrastructure Affairs at Ashghal, said during the Advances in Materials and Pavement Prediction (AM3P) conference in Doha on Monday.
"Today, there cannot be a more appropriate country to host this conference than Qatar which has in a short period of time and despite challenges made significant advancement in infrastructure, socioeconomics, and business development," Marri said.
"Since last year, Ashghal has been in a new phase of great acceleration to the pace of achievement, and today we are proud that most of Ashghal's projects are currently in the accelerated implementation phase," he said.
"Despite the challenge, we remained committed and in 2017, we completed more than what was achieved during the previous four years, with over 60 percent of these projects being carried out during the second half of the year," he added.
Marri said the authority promised to complete 113 kilometres of new highways with 210 kilometres for cycling and footpaths in 2018.
He noted that in terms of the infrastructure projects in local areas, Ashghal's priority and focus revolve around the provision of enhanced road networks in residential areas across the country.
"To achieve this, in 2018, Ashghal will start implementing various new projects to save over 15,000 land plots in addition to completing ongoing infrastructure projects while saving over 6,000 land plots in several areas. Under the local areas infrastructure programme, 11 projects will be completed this year developing 225 kilometres of road pavement. The project starting in 2018 will pave 695 kilometres of road in the next few years," the director added.
To support environmental sustainability in collaboration with other government entities, Ashghal has contributed to various promising initiatives, including the use of alternative recycled materials that can be used in its numerous projects, according to Marri.
The AM3P conference offers a unique international forum for exchanging ideas regarding various approaches to predict pavement performance. The conference was organised by Texas A&M University at Qatar, The University of Texas at Austin (the USA) and TU Delft (Netherlands), and is sponsored by the Public Works Authority 'Ashghal', QAPCO and the Qatar National Research Fund.
(Photograph by Rafeek Palayoor)
