CHITRAL: A former district nazim of Chitral has pinpointed several technical faults in the execution of the 157-kilometre Chitral-Shandur road project.

He has accused National Highway Authority (NHA), the execution agency of the project, of criminal negligence.

In a letter addressed to the chief secretary of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa last week, former district nazim Maghfirat Shah has expressed his apprehensions about the imminent failure of the mega road project being executed in the backward area.

In the outset of the three-page letter, the ‘reckless’ blasting of mountain rocks in Nerdet near Chitral city has been mentioned. He says that the blasting shook the entire mountain and the boulders rolling down had filled the Chitral River, raising its level and endangering the villages downstream, especially in the coming summer season.

Maghfirat Shah urges chief secretary to take notice of the matter

“The breast walls and retaining walls of the project have been designed such that the outward rough rubbles are joined together by a slight amount of cement-sand mixture, leaving the inner section totally dry,” says the letter.

All such structures of ‘breast walls’ and retaining walls have failed to withstand the load of the boulders and rock debris from above and have been flattened within weeks of construction.

“The construction firm is being benefited by the NHA officers ostensibly by allowing it to carry out unnecessarily rock and earth cutting for which the firm has reportedly given high cost in the tendering process. The project contains provision of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) bridges over the streams but the firm has not started work in any of these sites so far,” says the letter.

It says that the contractor will get the whole amount of the tender cost adjusting it in the rock cutting, breast walls and retaining walls as a result of which work on RCC bridges and asphalt will be left out.

Mr Shah has alleged that a large number of ‘breast walls’ and retaining walls are totally needless and uncalled for while all this is aimed at benefiting the construction firm, which has used the largely available boulders during the process of excavation.

He has mentioned the dismantling of old blacktopped road segments from Chitral city to Reshun village during initiation of work on the project three years ago, saying it was in fact aimed at making payment to the construction company.

Due to the premature dismantling of the road, thousands of commuters on daily basis face difficulties in travelling time from Chitral to Booni. He says that dirt road has elongated the journey from the previously two hours to now five hours.

The letter also mentions the diversion of road at the start of Reshun village, which is dangerously steep where accidents of loaded vehicles have become the order of the day and the situation worsens during the winter season.

The former nazim has requested the chief secretary to take notice of the situation.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2023