National Highway Authority (NHA) has revised upward the land acquisition PC-1 of Havelain-Thakot, the early harvest project of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), by 86 per cent ie from the initial Rs 7.27 billion to Rs 13.25 billion. According to the documents available with Business Recorder, the Memorandum of Understanding for construction of Raikot-Islamabad Highway Project was signed in 2014 between Pakistan and China which identifies it as the early harvest project of CPEC.
The Islamabad-Raikot Highway project constitutes the North of the CPEC; it is a key pre-stage project to promote construction of the corridor and lays a foundation for development of highway, railway, oil & gas pipeline and optical fiber namely "four in one" between the two countries. The Havelian to Thakot section (119.681 KM) is a part of Islamabad-Raikot project and is taken up as KKH (Phase-II).
According to documents, the PC-1 cost for land acquisition for road, allied facilities, RoW and interchanges was Rs 5.877 billion which has been revised upward to Rs 10.288 billion ie by 75 per cent, damages/compensation allied facilities, RoW and interchanges were estimated at Rs 587 million and revised to Rs 1.003 billion ie by 71 per cent, the cost of shifting utilizes were earlier estimated at Rs 235 million which has been revised by 349 per cent ie to Rs 1.054 billion.
The total cost as per the PC-1 was Rs 6.699 billion which has been revised to Rs 12.338 billion ie by 84 per cent. Contingencies charges lump sum as per the PC-1 was Rs 29.77 million but in the revised PC-1 it has revised to Rs 365 million ie by 1,126 per cent.
Simple interest for one year on original lump sum for one year on rationalized cost in the PC-1 was Rs 142.71 million which has been revised to Rs 340.71 million ie by 138 per cent. Hence the grand total as per the PC-1 was Rs 7.267 billion which has been revised to Rs 13.250 billion ie an increase of Rs 6.244 billion or 86 per cent.
Justifying the cost increase, NHA has maintained that average PC-I cost per kanal is very low as compared to the DC rate, inclusion of land for interchanges, inclusion of land for NH&MP establishment, inclusion of land for 02 service areas, inclusion of land of Abbottabad University of Science and Technology (AUST), inclusion of land for the construction of link roads, inclusion of additional land, relocation of additional utilities and graves, additional damages (dismantling of structures, crops, trees, etc), inclusion of land for tunnel management stations and simple interest at 6 per cent per annum.
The Executive Board has recommended the revision of land PC-1 of CPEC KKH Phase 11 (Havelian-Thakot section) for submission to CDWP/ECNEC for approval after getting the report of third party validation.
The newly appointed chairman NHA Jawwad Rafique Malik has stated that the 120 Km long Thakot-Havelian expressway project is divided into three segments. Construction of six state of the art tunnels having total length of 9Km is also included in scope of the project. The project is being completed at cost of Rs 134 billion and hopefully will be completed by February 2020.
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