September 24, 2007	Monday	Ramazan 11, 1428

MUZAFFARGARH, Sept 23: The construction company tasked with building the four-lane Chenab river bridge has failed to complete the project on its scheduled time of Aug 28, 2007.

Sources said the Hasnain Cotex Company, the contractor of the project, used substandard material in the project rejected by the National Highway Authority (NHA) and the National Engineering Services of Pakistan (Nespak).

Sources said that according to an NHA-Cotex agreement the bridge should have been completed by Aug 2007 and the government wanted to open it on Aug 28, but the company did not succeed in its task.

Sources said the construction company had to slow down work on certain piles and pillars of the bridge because the company had used substandard material there. An official working on the bridge said piles and pillars No 16/3 had been rejected by Nespak and NHA officials because of substandard material used there.

He said even though the officials of the NHA and Nespak supervising the project had informed their senior officials, but no action was taken on the issue.

The official claimed that if the material was not replaced, the bridge would collapse soon after its inaugural like the Shershah bridge, Karachi, caved in last month leaving seven people dead.

NHA Project Director Sajjad Goraya said he had made an inquiry team to know if substandard material had been used in the bridge. He said the team would complete the probe in a week. NHA Manager Shakeeb Hafeez said the authority would impose a fine on the company for delaying the project.

Habib Khan, project manager, of Hasnain Cotex Company, said the company had not used any substandard material in the bridge. He said that while digging the ground in the deep water of the river, a 100-year-old railway track had hindered the construction work. He said the company had to arrange foreign divers to cut the railway lines and because of this the construction of the bridge had been delayed.

Earlier, the company said it would not be able to complete the project in the stipulated time, blaming the Indus River System Authority (Irsa) for the delay. Company’s project manager Sajjad Ali said the project could not be completed by Aug 2007 because the construction work on the bridge was thrice interrupted because of the rising water level in the river about which Irsa should have informed the company in advance.

He said due to Irsa’s negligence not only precious time was lost but the company had also to suffer a loss of Rs250 million in terms of wastage of material and damage to the machinery.

He said the company had served a notice to the NHA, seeking compensation for the loss.

Later, IRSA in a press release denied all allegations.

The bridge was planned keeping in view the massive traffic volume which burdened the old bridge. The old bridge caters to heavy traffic pouring in from Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP, often resulting in jams.

To resolve the issue, the NHA Punjab awarded the contract to the company in Feb 2005 for the construction of a new four-lane bridge for Rs840 million. Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz laid the foundation stone of the bridge in May 2005.

Mian Muhammad Hussain, city nazim, alleged that this year there were no floods in the river and the company could utilise the time to complete its work on time.

The old bridge is famous as a “Killer Bridge” because massive traffic jams have taken many lives here. On Aug 14, six people drowned when they tried to cross the river on the boat because there an hours-long traffic jam on the bridge.