Airport Chowk Interchange: Work expected to be started by month’s end

Lowest bidder awarded contract

ISLAMABAD: Work on the Airport Chowk Interchange is expected to begin by the end of the current month as the civic agency awarded contract to the lowest bidder.

At least seven pre-qualified firms had submitted bids and the Capital Development Authority (CDA) awarded the contract to the lowest bid, ZKB’s Rs1.73 billion.

“ZKB won the contract after filing the lowest bid,” Project Director Shahid Mehmood confirmed, adding that the CDA’s own estimate was around Rs 2.4 billion, making the bid 24.15 per cent below the NHA schedule rates and 45 per cent below non-schedule rates.

The interchange is part of the signal-free controlled-access corridor from Zero Point to Rawat, which was inaugurated by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on June 30, 2015.

Due to funding shortages and other reasons, the federal government has already slashed the scope of the work on the project by limiting the number of interchanges between Faizabad and Rawat to four.

The first phase of the project — rehabilitation of the road from Zero Point to Faizabad and construction of an interchange at I-8 — has almost been completed at a cost of Rs1.6 billion.

Sohail also said that tenders for construction of the Sohan-Khanna Interchange will be opened next month. He said that the CDA would initiate work on interchanges at the Japan Road intersection and on GT Road near Rawat after the completion of ongoing work.

The federal government has asked the CDA to complete construction before November as Islamabad is scheduled to host the 19th South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SARRC) summit and dignitaries from SAARC countries would have to use the road to get to and from Benazir Bhutto International Airport.

CDA Engineering Member Shahid Sohail said that with the introduction of interchanges in the second phase (from Faizabad to Airport Chowk), the CDA was expected to reduce the cost of the project from earlier Rs 6.6 billion to Rs2.5 billion.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 13^th, 2016.