PESHAWAR, June 27: The National Highway Authority is still struggling to rehabilitate the dug-up and broken 34-kilometere stretch of the Grand Trunk Road between Peshawar and Nowshera, despite a lapse of four years .

The NHA officials, admitting engineering faults in the rehabilitation work of the project, say that legal actions against consultants and the construction firm might create contractual complications and further delay the work, adding that the authority did not want to indulge in legal disputes.

“If NHA starts disputes with contractor and consultants than it can lead to litigation which is very time consuming. That is why the authority has kept silence,” an official said.

Recently, a team of experts from Australia inspected the site to ascertain causes of failure of the project being financed by the World Bank. The team had submitted its report to the NHA chairman, sources said.

The rehabilitated portion of the GT Road has developed ruts and potholes, causing fatigue and risk for commuters travelling from Peshawar to other parts of the country. Work on the remaining portion of the road has stopped due to ‘shortage of bitumen in the market’.

The NHA awarded contract of the of 68-kilometer road (34-kilometer each lane) from Peshawar to Nowshera to M/s Put Sarajevo, a Bosnian company, whereas consultancy of the project was handed over to M/s SMEC International, an Australian firm. The cost of the project is Rs517 million and rehabilitation work had started in August 2004. Under the agreement the contractor had to complete the project in 18 months.

Officials said that potholes and cracks appeared in a 24-kilometer stretch of the road in the year 2005. Engineers attributed the fault to the unnecessary removal of the surface of the earlier road. After emergence of ruts and potholes the authority conducted an inquiry to ascertain causes of the defective engineering work.

Responsibility was fixed on the then project coordinator and he was removed from the job last year.

Insiders said that consultants were responsible for the design and engineering fault in the project, but the executing agency spared the Australian firm.

According to the agreement, the consultants are responsible for quality assurance and engineering decision of the project, but, the client (NHA) made its own official a scapegoat for the faulty work.

“Function of the project coordinator is to just assist contractor and consultants. In fact, he has no role in the engineering-related matters,” they said.

Sources said that foreign consultants had been drawing huge salaries from the World Bank borrowed money and head of the consultant firm was getting more than $25,000 salary a month.Another source said that the National Accountability Bureau was asked to investigate the matter, but the bureau refused to intervene into the matter.

NHA officials in Islamabad said that investigations were currently in its final stages. They said that such failures did not have any single contributing factor and were generally attributed to all parties involved (the contractor, consultant and the sponsor).

Officials said that rehabilitation work on the remaining 28 kilometres portion of the highway was still incomplete, which had also escalated cost of the project.