KARACHI, April 15: The work on reconstruction of Rs 2.7m World Bank-funded Mubarak Dam has started. The project suffered setbacks in the past owing to non-release of funds for the project.

Non-completion of the work played a havoc with the residents of Mubarak Village, Keamari Town in last monsoon when heavy rains washed away several houses. Realising the gravity of situation, the City Nazim, Naimatullah Khan, visited the village and assured the people that construction work would resume shortly.

But this announcement proved to be a lip-service and construction work could not be initiated due to indifferent attitude of the CDGK as no serious efforts were made to persuade the contractor to resume the work.

The project again suffered setback when the contractor refused to initiate the work due to higher prices of cement and steel as at the time of awarding the contract, the prices of steel and cement were much lower than the present ones.

The contractor asked the CDGK to reissue the contract on new rates, as it was hard to carry out work on old rates, but the CDGK did not pay any heed to the request and project remained dormant. Officials in the CDGK said that a series of meetings were held with the contractor over the last few weeks and now he has agreed to resume the work.

"The contractor agreed after he was assured that subsidy announced by government for carrying out development projects on steel and cement in view of recent crisis would be passed on to him". He told that construction work on the dam is in full swing and expressed the hope that it would be completed before the start of monsoon season this year. -PPI