DADU, July 5: The ground breaking ceremony of the Right Bank Outfall Drain project was formally performed near Kotri in Jamshoro district on Wednesday by Brigadier Falk Sher of the Frontier Works Organisation belonging to HQ-494 Engineering Corps, Karachi.
The ceremony was held at RD-08 of RBOD in reach-II, package No. 8 in RBOD division-II Jamshoro, about 32 kilometres off Kotri.
The Superintending Engineer of RBOD, Altaf Hussain Soomro, executive engineer RBOD division-II, Ishtiaque Hussain Memon, Lt Col Mirza Rasool Bux Baig of HQ-494 engineering corps and other irrigation and military officials were present on the occasion.
Speaking on the occasion, Brigadier Falak Sher said that the RBOD project would help save 4.32 million acres of land from water logging and salinity hazards.
He said that initially the designed discharge of RBOD was 2271 cusecs, which would be 3525 cusecs in stage-II, and the width of drain was increased from 31-feet to 61-feet.
He said that approved cost of PC-I was Rs14 billion which has been revised to Rs29.274 billion.
He said that increase in cost was mainly due to increase in number of structures, scope of flood protection works, unforeseen expenses and increase of bed width of drain.
He said that the length of RBOD from Sehwan to sea at Gharo is about 273 kilometres, which was divided in three reaches consisting of 32 packages, out of which 28 packages were awarded to civil contractors.
He said that the pace of work was very slow and some packages have been abandoned by the contractors due to different reasons.
He said that progress of acquiring land for the project was about 70 per cent. This was the main cause of delay in completion of project and work could only be completed by 30 to 35 per cent.
He said that under the special directives of President Musharraf, all structural works and remaining packages of drain would be carried out by FWO.
He said that task force was mobilized on the site under the supervision of Lt Col Mirza Rasool Bux Baig. He said that the initial work has been started. He said that the project would be completed by June 30, 2009.
He said that this project was started in 2001 through the irrigation department but could not be completed till 2005, hence FWO has taken over the remaining works.
DADU, July 5: The ground breaking ceremony of the Right Bank Outfall Drain project was formally performed near Kotri in Jamshoro district on Wednesday by Brigadier Falk Sher of the Frontier Works Organisation belonging to HQ-494 Engineering Corps, Karachi.
