Delay in NWFP road projects costs Rs2b

ISLAMABAD Delay in completion of the NHA road projects, from 1-2 year, in the NWFP is going to cost an additional amount of over Rs2 billion in terms of cost escalation.
The revised cost caused around Rs2 billion only in NWFP projects and projects under National Highway Improvement Programme (NHIP), while most of the road project in the province are still far behind completion, official sources disclosed to TheNation on Friday.
The further delay in the projects could cause more loss to the national exchequer if it was not completed in stipulated time, the sources informed.
The original cost of all the projects in the NWFP including NHIP was above Rs 7,800 million and the revised cost due to delay is estimated to be above Rs 8,0000 million.
Among the 16 NWFP road projects including (NHIP) projects, the cost of more than half of the projects was revised due to reasons including law and order situation, paucity of funds and change in plan, etc.
According to the official progress report made available to TheNation, expected dates for the completion of around five projects including Torkham-Jalalabad Lowari Tunnel and up-gradation of KKH have passed and completion dates of the remaining projects are too close.
It was observed that in most of the projects, expected date for completion was March 2010 while in most of the cases work on these projects was only 50 percent complete. It is pertinent to mention here that many important projects in NWFP including up-gradation of KKH, Lowari Tunnel, Torkham-Jalalabad are getting delayed due to plethora of reasons thus causing heavy loss in shape of revised cost.
It merits mentioning here that not only law and order situation, military operation and weather aspects are the reasons for delay but also change in plan, slow progress of the work, rectification of defective work also happen to be among the main causes of delay. Work on Lowari Tunnel (rail project) was closed not only due to military operation in the region but also because of the fact that the rail project was converted to road project after decades, NHA sources said. The original cost was Rs 5,428 million while its revised cost was Rs 6,047 million. In case of Naran-Jhalkhad-Chilas, the original cost was Rs 992 million while the revised cost is Rs 1,369 million, informed the sources.
Official sources disclosed that the original cost of dualization of Shergar to Dargai Road was Rs 126 million and it was revised to Rs 244 million. In NHIP, the source informed, the original cost of Karachi-Hyderabad (40km) was Rs 572 million and it was revised to Rs 583 million. The progress report also suggested that most of the NHIP had been substantially completed, but the cost in these projects was also revised.
Despite several attempts, Minister for Communication Dr Arbab Alamgir was not available on his cell phone while the senior official in NHA desiring not to be named said the delay in the payment and paucity of the funds, law and order situation had become the major reasons for the delay in completion of most of the projects.