Award of infrastructure projects: NHA Board approves amendments in pre-qualification procedure

ISLAMABAD: The National Highways Authority (NHA) Executive Board approved amendments in the pre-qualification procedure for awarding infrastructure projects by changing the technical expertise and financial capability ratios.

The 400th meeting of the Executive Board of NHA was held under the chairmanship of Chairman NHA Capt Muhammad Khurram Agha (retired) here on Thursday.

The Authority spaceperson said the Board, as per vision of the Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved a number of measures pertaining to the procurement process to award contracts to construction companies which were technically sound. “These measures are aimed at ensuring proper eligibility of contractors for construction, extension and repair of motorways and National Highways.”

NHA will pre-qualify the contractors on the basis of projects and work in light of PPRA rules and regulations. Moreover, changes have also been made in technical expertise and financial capability during pre-qualification.

As per the existing prequalification procedure, the ratio of technical expertise and financial capability was determined as 70 percent and 30 percent respectively. While under the new arrangement, this ratio will be determined as 80 percent and 20 percent respectively.

The contractors are now required to provide bank guarantees instead of insurance guarantees. Further, physical inspection of machinery, equipment and technical staff availability will be conducted during the pre-qualification process. These measures will help to implement construction activities of the projects more effectively.

In addition to that, a third-party ground validation of works will also be ensured. The Board unanimously supported these measures in order to eradicate delays and ensure timely completion and quality construction of motorway and national highway projects in the country. All these steps will be implemented immediately as per the decision of the Executive Board.

The meeting was attended by Inspector General National Highways and Motorways Police Khalid Mahmood, Chief NTRC Hameed Akhtar, Additional Secretary Finance Division and Planning Division, Vice President NESPAK and senior officers of the Ministry of Communications and National Highway Authority.

NHA Member Planning Asim Amin held E-Kachehri at the head office of the Authority through the NHA’s official Facebook page and answered the questions raised by the people from all over the country.

He also asked the concerned members of NHA to resolve the issues identified by people regarding construction activity of NHA. He assured to contact other agencies affiliated to NHA for redressal of legitimate grievances of the complainants. Referring to some of the roads, Asim Amin said the same were under the jurisdiction of the provincial governments; therefore the concerned agencies of the provincial governments should be contacted with regard to those roads.

Responding to questions from people across the country, he said work was under way on all packages of Chitral-Shandur project, while Jamshoro-Larkana highway was being dualised.

He said work on dualisation of Indus Highway from Karachi to Peshawar was under way which would be completed in next 2-3 years. He said steps were being taken to start construction work on Sukkur-Hyderabad Motorway soon.

He said technical bids had been received for the construction of Kharian-Rawalpindi Motorway. Replying to a question, he said that maintenance work of Dera Ghazi Khan and Dera Ismail Khan Road was among priorities. He said contractors had been mobilized on two packages of Khuzdar-Kuchlak Highway.

He said any illegal U-turn found on Ghotki-Hyderabad National Highway would be closed. He said work was under way on Balkassar-Mianwali Road, which would be completed next year. He also said that work for dualisation of Kashmore-Shikarpur Road project had also been awarded.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022