CHITRAL: Representatives of a civil society organisation have demanded of the prime minister to take cognisance of the ‘substandard’ construction of Chitral-Shandur Road executed by the National Highway Authority.

Speaking at a news conference at the Chitral Press Club, Liaqat Ali, Syed Burhan Shah and Inayatullah Aseer of Chitral Development Movement (CDM) alleged that no NHA engineer remained on the site to oversee the quality of work.

They said due to reckless blasting in the mountains boulders fell into the Chitral River, obstructing the waterway and raising its level, thus threating the downstream areas with floods.

The civil society activists said rocks fell into the river from Chitral city to Mastuj, a stretch of about 100 kilometres. They regretted that last summer, the river washed away 500-year-old Chinar trees near the royal fort and submerged a hydro power station of Wapda and inundated hundreds of acres of land in the low-lying villages.

The activists regretted that the breast and retaining walls of the road project crumbled this winter as they failed to withstand the load of boulders and rock debris falling from above.

They alleged the NHA allowed the construction firm to carry out unnecessarily rock and earth cutting, for which it had reportedly been given high cost.

They said the road project contained the provision of reinforced cement concrete (RCC) bridges over the streams, but the construction firm had not yet started work in any of these sites. They feared the contractor would skip the construction of RCC bridges and asphalt work as the cost of the project would be consumed on blasting of rock and building retaining and breast walls.

The activists claimed a large number of breast and retaining walls were needless. They complained the old blacktopped road from Chitral city to Booni was dismantled three years ago, which was in fact aimed at making payment to the construction company as it was one of the quoted items in the bidding process.

“Due to the premature dismantling of the road, thousands of commuters are suffering as it now took five hours from Chitral city to Booni and vice versa compared to only two hours previously.

NHA project director Zaheeruddin refuted the allegations of civil society activists and insisted the project was executed as per the specifications of the approved design.

However, he admitted the dismantling of the blacktopped road was carried out before time that caused nuisance to commuters.

Published in Dawn, May 15th, 2024