NAROWAL: The National Sports City (NSC), Narowal, will be completed during the current year, a claim being heard for umpteenth time as the authorities had made many such claims during the last many years when the project was going to be completed.

The construction was started in 2009 on the Rs2.9bn project on the Narowal-Muridke Road on a 46 acre piece of land. The authorities have been giving various timeframes for its completion. Claims about completion of the project were made in the year 2016, 2017 and now the authorities concerned made another claim that it would be completed until Dec 31, 2018.

Interestingly, President Mamnoon Hussain has already inaugurated the project on April 30 when it was far from completion. A friendly cricket match between President XI and PCB XI was also played on the occasion.

The same day National Accountability Bureau (NAB) launched a probe into the complaint against corruption in the project. NAB, in a statement, said it had received a complaint that the Narowal Sports City was constructed at a cost of approximately Rs6bn which was a violation of rules.

The NSC project was launched in 2009 when the PPP was in power in the central government and the PML-N was in opposition. Ahsan Iqbal, who was an MNA, made efforts and got this project approved in his constituency from the then Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.

Under the project, 14 stadiums of different sports are being constructed and it includes a gymnasium, squash court, swimming pool, cricket, football and hockey grounds, basketball, tennis and badminton courts and facilities and stadiums for other games.

About the same time when NAB received a complaint against corruption in the project and launched a probe, Ahsan Iqbal called a press meeting at the sports city. According to the information about the completion of the project given to the media in the meeting, gymnasium and squash courts are 99pc complete, 80pc work has been done on swimming pool, 94pc on cricket and football stadium, 98pc on hockey, basketball and tennis courts while 98pc of the construction on administration block, external department, mosque, clock tower and restaurants for players is complete. However, only 53pc work has been done on the block II for accommodation of players and the authorities referred to legal matters for being the reason for the delay.

Different construction companies remained involved in the completion of the project, including M/s Progressive International, Jan Alam and Co, NLC and M/s Muhammad Ahmad Private, Limited.

The NSC project was delayed reportedly due to unavailability of funds but when Ahsan Iqbal became the federal minister for planning and development in 2013, the construction restarted.

According to some media reports, the NSC dominated the federal sports budget for three years in a row, i.e. 2015, 2016 and 2017. In annual federal budget of 2017, Ahsan Iqbal managed to get Rs500m allocated for the project. In 2016, 70pc of the sports development budget (Rs450m out of Rs630m) for the fiscal year also went to Narowal due to the NSC.

Talking about the NSC, Ahsan claimed that after its completion, the players of not only Narowal and Gujranwala but from all over the country would avail its sports facilities. He claimed that the total cost of the project was Rs2.9bn while Rs2.5bn have so far been spent on it. He rejected the allegations that Rs6bn were embezzled in the project.

Talking about the corruption allegations and the NAB probe, Mr Iqbal said that if any government servant or contractor had been involved in any irregularity he should be arrested.

Published in Dawn, June 20th, 2018