Construction work on the auditorium was suspended in February 2009 due to shortage of funds and has been on hiatus since then. PHOTO: MUHAMMAD JAVAID/EXPRESS
ISLAMABAD:
Located in the premises of Pakistan Academy of Letters (PAL), an abandoned under-construction building narrates the sorry tale of how we remember our men of letters.
It has taken on the look of a haunted building. The ground covered with weeds, at first sight, the structure looks like the skeleton of a building devastated by a natural calamity.
The ‘haunted house’ is in fact an auditorium, named after the revolutionary poet Faiz Ahmad Faiz.
Construction work on the auditorium was suspended in February 2009 due to a funding shortage, and has been on hiatus since then.
The Rs39.7 million Faiz Ahmad Faiz Auditorium project kicked off in July 2008, and according to the PC-I of the project, it should have been completed by December 2009. About four-and-a-half-years on, the 49 per cent of construction work completed is also falling apart.
Pakistan Academy of Letters Chairman Abdul Hameed told The Express Tribune that the “government released only Rs22 million out of the contract amount, which has been spent on work done. Now there is not even a single penny in PAL’s account to reinitiate construction work,” Hameed said.
The PC-I of the project has already been exhausted and in recent past, the project contractor has hiked the new estimated cost to three times the original cost. “The cost escalation issue has been conveyed to the Ministry of National Heritage and Integration and the Planning Division,” Hameed said.
He said the contractor of the project has already refused to carry out further work on the basis of rates quoted in 2008.
On the other hand, the concerned officials are blaming administrative hurdles created by the 18th Amendment the reasons behind the delay.
After the devolution of the Ministry of Education, PAL was moved under the administrative control of the Cabinet Division, and later the prestigious institute was transferred to the newly-created Ministry of National Heritage and Integration.
The repeated transfer of administrative control of PAL between different authorities created several hurdles in the smooth functioning of the institution and it also affected its projects, including the Faiz Ahmed Faiz Auditorium.
However, Hameed negated the impression that administrative control reshuffles were to blame. “The 18Th Amendment has nothing to do with it. The issue is over a funding shortage. Today, if government releases Rs40 million for the project, it will be completed within five months,” Hameed said.
A PAL official asking not to be named said that the Ministry of National Heritage recently suggested forming a steering committee comprising of four members to resolve issues surrounding the auditorium.
He said one representative each from the Finance division, Planning division, Pak-PWD and PAL were supposed to be members of the committee. The committee was scheduled to meet once-a-month to oversee the pace of work on Faiz the project, “but the committee was never formed.”
According to the PC-I for the project, the auditorium would have a main conference hall with seating capacity for 400 people, two state-of-the-art committee rooms, a corridor that would serve as a museum, and a dedicated studio for state-run television and FM radio.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 24th, 2013.
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