Banaras flyover : Contractor waiting for money to finish project

Sindh govt needs to pay Rs900m, CDGK gives another deadline of two months.

KARACHI:

The city's longest ever flyover, the Bacha Khan Flyover at Banaras Chowk, is still two months away from completion - despite repeated timelines and deadlines given by the city government.

The design has been revised twice while the project's feasibility report has been altered three times.

The provincial government's financial crunch keeps on delaying the project, a chief engineer in the City District Government Karachi's works and services department told The Express Tribune. "The Sindh government has to release around Rs900 million for the at-grade work of the flyover, which has been suspended for months," he said. At-grade work is a project's periphery construction - in this case, storm-water drains and link roads.

"Right now, we need expansion joints that we cannot buy because the CDGK owes money to the contractor," the engineer said. The contractor has also been waiting for over a year to be paid Rs220 million for the construction of the Samama flyover in Gulistan-e-Jahaur, officials revealed.

Although the CDGK had opened one side of the flyover a few months ago - coming from Orangi towards the main city - but essential components such as link roads and drains are still not complete. The main track is also incomplete because the expansion joints are not available and without the joints, the bridge is not safe.

The joints are available locally but the CDGK wants only the imported ones. The contractor is responsible for their availability under an agreement with the executing agency, the CDGK, but even he needs money to import the material from China. These joints will be installed at the end of each girder that is about 25 metres to 35 metres long and 20 metres to 30 metres wide.

Works and services DDO Ishrat told The Express Tribune that the DCO, after his return from Turkey, is likely to approve Rs20 million for the import of the expansion joints. The arrangements of the required funds would be drawn from the district annual development programme (DADP), he informed.

Meanwhile, City administrator Lala Fazlur Rehman along with works and services EDO A Rasheed Mughal, municipal services EDO Masood Alam and media management director Bashir Sadduzai paid an inspection visit to the Bacha Khan Flyover on Saturday.

The administrator said the initial construction of roads around the flyover has been completed while road carpeting would also be done in two months.

Around two million people would benefit from the flyover, connecting in three town municipal administrations - Orangi, SITE and North Nazimabad. The flyover’s construction started over three years ago.

Published in The Express Tribune, April 4^th,  2011.