ISLAMABAD: Capital Development Authority (CDA) Chairman Amer Ali Ahmed on Sunday directed the engineering wing of the civic body to wrap up construction work on the Rawal Dam Interchange project by August 30, especially the flyover that he wanted to be up and running by the end of this month.

Chairman Ahmed, Member Engineering Syed Munawar Shah and other officers of CDA visited the construction site to inspect the speed of the work.

In April, Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif directed the CDA to complete the project by the first week of September by all means necessary.

The project, worth Rs1.1 billion, was inaugurated in July 2020, but work on it formally began in October. The project was expected to conclude by Oct this year but the premier moved up the deadline by a month.

It was also decided that the FWO would complete the project at the same amount - Rs1.1 billion - on which it was awarded to the former contractor who quit the project midway.

In order to meet the deadline fixed by PM Sharif, the CDA management has ramped up the work on the project.

“We are planning to open the overpass/flyover to traffic on July 31. While the entire project will be completed by the end of August for its final inauguration which is likely to take place in the first week of September,” said an officer of the CDA.

The CDA had faced a setback when contractors – a joint venture of two companies – stopped construction work halfway earlier this year due to a hike in the prices of construction material.

The work remained suspended for a couple of months before being taken over by the Frontier Works Organisation (FWO) and National Logistics Cell (NLC) at the request of the civic body.

It is relevant to note that the current CDA administration has been awarding major contracts either to the FWO or the NLC under 42(F) ofPPRArules. Currently, both construction companies have been executing projects of CDA worth billions of rupees.

Referring to the award of the Rawal Road project to private companies, a CDA engineer commented that the civic body’s experience with the private contractors was “disappointing” which made the authority look towards the army-run companies for timely completion of the project. “Now, we are satisfied that work will be completed by end of August,” he said while commenting on the FWO.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2022