Member Engineering of the Capital Development Authority Syed Munawar Shah informed The Nation that the civic authority is actively pursuing the FWO for timely completion of the project.
“We have been tasked by the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif to complete this project in September 2022 during his visit on the project site,” he informed, adding: “In compliance of his order, we will complete this project one month ahead of its completion timeline, which was October 2022.”
The said project in addition to two others was awarded to a joint venture of Maqbool Associates and Calson in June 2020.
The contractor completed almost 90 percent of work on the PWD underpass and it was opened for traffic, however, it had stopped working on other two projects: Rawal Dam Interchange and Korang Bridge in March 2022.
The contractor approached the city managers and requested to give him an out of box ‘bailout package’ to complete the assigned projects as he cannot conclude them otherwise due to an extraordinary price hike especially in respect of steel.
The civic body had refused to go beyond the scope of his agreement and resultantly the contractor had stopped work on site, leaving CDA in a fix to either give a bailout package or terminate the contract.
In the meantime, the government has changed in the capital and Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif in his early days in the office had paid a surprise visit to this project where he expressed his dissatisfaction over the slow pace of work.
He also got annoyed after knowing that the project was given to Maqbool Associates and Calson because the same company was blacklisted by Punjab government during younger Sharif’s tenure as chief minister Punjab, when the company was employed on Orange Line Lahore.
The said contractor is considered a blue-eyed of the former Prime Minister Imran Khan because when he was kicked out from Punjab, he went to the Peshawar where PTI was in power and won the contract of Bus Rapid Transport System.
Later, when Imran Khan came into power in the centre, he also successfully managed to secure three contracts in one go through bidding.
A decision to handover this project to FWO was taken during the visit of the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, who inspected work on the under-construction interchange and after a briefing, it was decided to change the contractor with a direction to start the construction within 72 hours.
Later, the project was handed over to the FWO, which has agreed to complete the project without demanding any escalation in the cost in the contract.
The project includes multiple slip roads and one underpass as well as an overhead bridge and a separate underpass connecting Margalla Town. The project is being constructed at the junction of Murree Road, Club Road and Park Road.
Once completed, the project will provide relief to commuters as traffic congestion on this portion of Murree Road has become a routine.