CHITRAL: The local people have demanded establishment of material testing laboratory in Chitral for the departments of communication and works (C&W), irrigation and public health engineering to ensure the quality of development works.

Former MPA Syed Sardar Hussain Shah said that in every district, there was a material testing laboratory to test the quality of concrete, asphalt, water pipes, iron sheets and cement as well the local material that included crushed gravels, stones, sand and wood.

He said that as per his knowledge, Chitral was one of the few districts of the province that were devoid of the facility owing to which the development works, especially the buildings, started decaying soon after their completion.

He said that as MPA, he had time and again raised the issue but the then PTI government in the province did not pay heed to it and as a result the quality of public works was affected.

An engineer of a public works department admitted necessity of laboratory in Chitral and said that the site engineer had no facility of even concrete testing that diminished the quality of buildings and lining works of irrigation channels.

He said that Chitral was a hilly area where roads passed through the mountains and the strata changed after a small distance, making the change of design inevitable accordingly while at present no test of the structure was carried out. As a result, the boulders continued to fall throughout the year, he added.

The engineer said that even sand was not found as per standard and contained a large part of soil that caused to destabilise the concrete works further leading to the collapse of the structure.

He said that the departments had no provision of sending the sample of the material to other districts for testing purpose. Regarding the cost of the establishment of the laboratory, he said that a sum of only Rs3 million was required to fully equip it with the necessary gadgets and instruments.

Published in Dawn, January 18th, 2021