ISLAMABAD, Feb 1: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) has imposed a Rs500,000 per day fine on the developers of Kulsum Plaza underpass after they failed to meet the third deadline for project completion.

“From today we have imposed the fine on the contractor at the rate of 0.1 per cent of the total cost of the project per day and it would be collected at the time of completion of the underpass,” Deputy Director (roads) Humayun Akhtar told Dawn on Thursday.

He said the CDA rules permitted imposition of fine on a contractor in case of inordinate delay and other discrepancies in the development work.

The CDA had set January 31 as the third deadline for completion of the underpass but now it is likely that the project would take two more months.

Originally the underpass was to be completed by November 2006 and later the deadlines of December 2006 and January 2007 were fixed.

The project was jointly awarded to Gammon and Matracon on May 18, 2006 at a cost of Rs500 million.

The contractor has sought two months’ extension for completion of the project but the request has been turned down, the CDA official said.

He said CDA Chairman Kamran Lashari had directed the officials concerned to take strict action against the contractor and rejected the plea for further extension.

Matracon has also won the contract of another underpass to be built at Faisal Chowk at a cost of Rs992 million.

After the expiry of the last deadline, the firm had assured the authority that the tunnel would be opened for traffic by the end of January but the finishing of the project would take at least two months.

An official of the construction firm claimed that the underpass could be opened in 15 days but they needed some more time to fully complete the project.

He agreed that the project had been delayed by three months. however, he said CDA was responsible for the delay as it had not removed underground lines of gas, water and electricity before handing over the site to the firm.

The CDA has spent an additional amount of Rs250 million on the removal of services alone.

The underpass would cross three roads - the Jinnah Avenue, Fazl-i-Haq Road and Nazimuddin Road.

The underpass is being built under a mega project that envisaged construction of three underpasses at Jinnah Avenue to make Islamabad Highway a fast moving track.

These underpasses have been proposed at Faisal Chowk, Kulsum Plaza Chowk and China Chowk. The underpasses were proposed 50 years ago under the master plan of Islamabad.

Before the commissioning of the Kulsum Plaza Chowk underpass, some traffic engineers suggested the CDA to start the construction of all three underpasses on Jinnah Avenue simultaneously to save time and inconvenience to the commuters and people at large. Each underpass would take at least six months for completion and thus all three would require one-and- half years if constructed one by one.