KARACHI, Aug 30: The cracks in a portion of the Liaquatabad flyover have developed due to the poor maintenance and avoidance of quality inspection on the part of the city government, sources close to the CDGK said on Monday.

The cracks had begun to appear last week but the concerned department continued to turn a blind eye towards the damage. The flyover had to be closed to normal traffic for necessary repair a few days back when the concrete material around the cracks started falling down.

Sources pointed out that no independent mechanism for quality inspection existed in the city government to ensure good standard of construction work, especially in the infrastructure development project.

The job is handled by the Quality Inspection Cell of the city government's works department and the responsible official is the EDO who himself executes development projects.

How could the department executing a project be expected to keep an independent view of its own work and check poor quality or irregularities? the sources pointed out while stressing that only an independent mechanism could ensure transparency.

A meeting of the National Standing Committee on Local Government was held a few weeks back where it was noted that the CDGK was handling mega projects costing billions of rupees without having an independent quality inspection laboratory.

The meeting was of the view that the judgment of CDGK's internal quality checking system in this regard could not be relied upon as it was functioning under the same department which was executing the projects.

The committee had called for a fully fledged independent quality inspection department to ensure desired quality of work in all development projects. The committee's instructions and observations, however, seem to have not been heeded by the concerned quarters.

Apart from the quality control, lack of maintenance appeared to be another factor contributing to the damage caused to the flyover. The Liaquatabad flyover is the longest among others in the country and has cost around Rs362 million.

Though fully inducted, the flyover project could not be regarded as complete because work on parts of this enormous projects is still pending. For instance, the roads beneath and on both the sides of the flyover have not fully been constructed.

The unfinished work has already resulted in a number of accidents, some of them having claimed lives. The sources also pointed out that certain portion of the Rashid Minhas Road flyover had also developed cracks some time back again due to the lack of maintenance and poor quality work.

Referring to the concerned authorities' claim that latest technology and material were being employed while undertaking the projects, the sources said that the cracks having been developed so early raised many questions in this regard. The EDO Works and Services, Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui, was not available when contacted for his views on the issue. -PPI