Senate body concerned over increasing project costs

NHA to hold consultants responsible for any further hikes

ISLAMABAD: Officials of the National Highway Authority informed the Senate Standing Committee for Communication on Monday that according to directions of the National Highway Council, project consultants will be responsible for any major changes to the PC-1 including increase in costs.

The committee session chaired by Senator Hidyatullah was further informed the Export–Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) will soon start providing funding for the Malakand Project under the Public Service Development Programme (PSPD).

Chairman NHA Javed Rafiq Malik informed the panel that the cost of Qila Saifullah Loralai road had been increased by Rs99.1 million due to delay in construction. “The mistakes were also responsible for the delay committed in revenue record, which caused delays to the projects,” he said, adding that cases were filed by land owners.

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The committee also expressed concern over the cost escalation of NHA projects and directed the communication ministry to devise a mechanism to avoid unnecessary increase in cost of the projects.

Malik said that all designs are only made by the consultants and changes in their designs led to increase of millions of rupees in costs but no one ever takes responsibility of the issue.

“National Highway Council has directed that from now on, the responsibility for major amendments in PC-1 will be on the consultant,” he informed the committee.

During the session, Senator Behramand Tangi raised an issue pertaining to the construction company of the Takhtbhai Durgai Road to which chairman NHA responded the project's file had some errors after which a new file was made.

Senator Tangi expressed disapproval upon noticing the change and had a heated exchange of words with Chairman NHA. Later, the NHA chief assured the committee the matter will be resolved after Eid while blaming payment delays for increased costs of NHA projects.

To this, the committee chairman questioned how the contractor was blamed even when the mistake had been committed by NHA. What kind of projects do you build?

The NHA chairman replied that all of the authority's projects were built on political or strategic basis.  Meanwhile, Senator Yusuf Badini maintained the NHA was also responsible for intimating authorities about its priority on the technical basis. It has been a year since the government is in place but no performance is being seen until now.

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Chairman NHA also told the meeting that Malakand Tunnel Project had been included in the PSDP and the Export–Import Bank of Korea (KEXIM) will provide funding to the project while procurement of the consultant is at its final stage.

Meanwhile, Inspector General National Highway and Motorway told the committee that motorway police was introducing a number of new initiatives to minimise accidents and regularise traffic. Speed Checking Cameras would be installed at different places of the motorways.

However, the IG also informed the committee that as many as 900 positions remain vacant at the department but recently 500 positions have been filled with 143 appointments from Balochistan.