October 23, 2006	Monday	Ramazan 29, 1427

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PESHAWAR, Oct 22: Two development projects worth Rs700 million of the University of Peshawar are running behind schedule with the administration and contractors blaming each other for the delay.

A Rs520 million project financed by the Higher Education Commission to construct two faculty buildings has been awarded to a Lahore-based firm.

A project worth Rs180 million of construction of 100 residential quarters for teachers is being executed by the National Logistics Cell (NLC).

The university’s works director acknowledged that pace of work on both the projects was slow.

The contractors claimed that delay in payment was hampering the execution of the projects.

The contract for the construction of two six-storey academic buildings, which would house 14 departments, was awarded to Nishan Engineers.

The administration had released Rs20 million to the construction firm for the mobilisation of heavy construction machinery and manpower to the site.

The project was launched in April and, according to the agreement, the first portion of the block is to be completed in three years, while the second block will be completed in two years.

Officials said the foundation of the first block could not be completed in seven months.

According to sources, HEC Executive Director Suhail Naqvi said while inspecting the project recently: “If the construction work continues at such a slow speed, the commission will have to shift the project to some other public sector university.”

After a visit by the NWFP Governor’s Inspection Team to the site, the university administration made the site engineer a scapegoat and replaced him, while the works director was made the project director.

The sources told Dawn that the contractor had purchased steel bars of inferior quality, which were rejected by the material testing laboratory of the NWFP University of Engineering and Technology.

The works director said the firm had tried to use material of poor quality.

The university administration had formed a technical committee headed by former vice-chancellor of the NWFP UET, Karim Khan, but it had not held any meeting or visited the site, the sources said.

Officials said the construction of residential quarters, which was started last year, was scheduled to be completed within 18 months, but the world was far behind the schedule.

The sources said the NLC had obtained the contract on the basis of no profit no loss but it had sublet the contract to at least three contractors in violation of the agreement. They said some of the contractors had abandoned the project saying that they were unable to carry out the work because of low rate.

The sources said the sub-contractors had abandoned the project due to non-payment while the NLC had recently borrowed Rs10 million from a bank to clear dues of contractors.

An NLC official alleged that the university administration was slow in payment and identification of sites.

He said work on 60 houses was in progress, while land for forty others had not been handed over to the NLC.