The Capital Development Authority (CDA) is likely to impose a fine on the contractors of Kulsoom Plaza underpass from one to 10 percent of the original cost of Rs 500 million due to its failure to complete the project even on the expiry of third deadline.
Sources told Business Recorder that the project has been delayed by over six months, as 20 percent work still needs to be done would take two more months. This is for the third time that the contractors Matracon and Gammon Pakistan are being given notices by the authority, but all the contractors are not taking them seriously. The initial completion deadline of the project was October 2006.
On the other hand, the contractors' viewpoint is that the project was delayed, as CDA could not remove the underground water and gas pipelines and power cables before handing the land over to the firm.
The sources said the CDA rules permitted imposition of fine on a contractor in case of inordinate delay and other discrepancies in the development work. The CDA had set January 31 as the third deadline for completion of the underpass but now it seems that the project would take two more months.
Originally the underpass was to be completed by November 2006 and later the deadlines of December 2006 and January 2007 were fixed. The project was jointly awarded to Gammon and Matracon Pakistan on May 18, 2006 at a cost of Rs 500 million. It is also learnt that the authority has spent an additional amount of Rs 250 million on the removal of services infrastructure alone.
Meanwhile, Pakistan Environmental Protection Agency (Pepa) has also expressed its reservations time and again over the different projects being executed in the capital, saying that the CDA and the construction firms are not making proper arrangements for disposal of mud removed from the site of the underpass. A thick blanket of dust in the vicinity is causing airborne diseases in the capital.