ISLAMABADA: Work on Rawal Chowk Interchange project launched by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has been delayed by around six months as the development body of the capital has failed to finalise its design.

As a result, the contractor has the right to charge up to Rs600 million in terms of cost escalations.

To ease traffic congestion at Rawal Chowk, the intersection of Murree Road and Park Road, the CDA called bids for construction of the interchange which were opened in June.

The interchange will constitute an underpass as well as an overpass to cater for traffic coming from several sides. The project was inaugurated by Prime Minister Imran Khan in July 2020 but the design of the project is yet to be vetted by a consultant.

None of the CDA officials, including its spokesperson, were willing to speak on record over the delay. However, a senior official of the planning wing said the initial design of the interchange was prepared by the CDA but later it was decided to get it vetted from a consultant.

“The process of hiring a design consultant was initiated after the project was inaugurated, and currently the consultant, Zeeruk International, is completing the cost vetting of the project,” said the official who wished not to be named.

He said if the cost of the project was estimated to be higher by the consultant, the CDA board would grant approval for an additional amount.

The cost of the interchange estimated by the CDA was Rs1.31 billion while the lowest bid was offered by the joint venture of Maqbool Associates and Calson at Rs1.17bn followed closely by Maxim Group and ZKB.

Though the CDA did not release the bids offered by other contenders, a senior official of the engineering wing said the second and the third bidders were only 2 to 5 per cent higher than the winner.

“The project has already been delayed by around six months and the contractor would be adding cost escalation charges up to Rs600 million if things continued to move at this pace,” the official added.

As per the regulations, the contractor can charge up to 50pc of cost escalation if the delays are caused by the CDA or any other factor beyond the responsibility of the contractor.

Originally, the Rawal Chowk Interchange project was scheduled to be completed by July 2022. But to conceal the basic flaws in the launch of the project, respective officers of the authority blamed the Environment Protection Agency (EPA) for not granting an approval to launch the project.

However, EPA Director General Farzana Altaf Shah said the approval to carry out the work had already been granted and if there were any delays the agency had nothing to do with it.

“We did stop the work initially because the CDA did not fulfil the required formalities,” she said, adding: “Nobody is allowed to destroy the environment in the name of development.”

She said there is always one designated officer at each project to ensure that all requirements of environmental impact assessment (EIA) report are fulfilled by the development and engineering teams.

Meanwhile, an officer of the environmental wing acknowledged that around 150 trees had been identified for relocation and the process would start soon.

Published in Dawn, December 13th, 2020