By: Gul Hamad Farooqui.
CHITRAL: Construction work on the Chitral-Booni Shandor road continue for the last 4 years under the supervision of the National Highway Authority (NHA). On one hand, the construction work on this road, at the cost of billions of rupees, suffered from unnecessary delay, while on other hand, the quality of work is also substandard. This is why most of its protection walls are automatically falling before its completion. Members of the CDM (Chitral Development Moment), a volunteer organization that raise voice and advocates for the construction and repair of roads in Chitral, inspected the road.
Experts revealed that contract of this road construction was awarded to Umar John & Company but they have divided the work among small (PT) contractors. They said that the retaining, breast walls on road bank towards Chitral river have been built on sandy ground without any foundation, as well as in its construction it seems that very less cement used and only garbage and small pieces of stones have been put inside the protection wall and plastered it with cement on the outside. There was no curing on cement work timely water has not been showered on it, due to which these cements are also decaying, decomposed and these retaining walls falling without any flood or avalanche.
Apart from the CDM members, the passers-by also broke the cement walls with their hands and described it as very substandard quality and poor work.
Prominent lawyer Syed Burhan Shah advocate, social activist Inayatullah Asir, Muhammad Ashraf, student Kamran, Sultan Mehmood, Zakaria and other people walking on the road also expressed their concerned that such a poor work was done on the Chitral-Boni main road on which thousands of people pass on daily basis, then what will be the standard of NHA’s work where there is not much traffic.
They said that usually, if common man do construction work in house, they first dig three to four feet of foundation for the wall and put cement in the stones to build the wall. But in this unique retaining wall small stones and garbage have been put inside the protection walls without any cement inside and the wall has been plastered from the outside which gives the impression that cement has been used throughout the wall but the wall is without cement inside. As well as the contractor also not properly its curing and no water were put on it due to which the cement has become rotten and useless without water in July and August, that is why these walls are falling down on their own. Where the walls have fallen, there is neither flood , avalanche nor any big stone falling on them, but because of the lack of cement and no foundation, the wall has slipped beneath and collapsed.
The CDM members also disclosed that Irfan-ul-Haq, Consultant Resident Engineer on behalf of NESPAK i.e. National Engineering Services Pakistan, did not visit the site even once to check the quality of the work. They further said that his complaint was also brought into the notice of project director of NHA but his reply was that he is a heart patient and is not able to walk on road. Our representative tried repeatedly to contact the officials of NHA and NESPAK but failed and a message also sent to them on their number with a request to give their version on the matter so that the statement of both sides can be given in the media but for now. So far no response has received from them.
Syed Burhan Shah Advocate and other members of CDM have demanded from the Chief Justice of Pakistan, Prime Minister of Pakistan, Federal Minister and Secretary Communications and Chairman NHA to conduct a judicial inquiry into this faulty work and rectify it, so as it should be built according to the prevailing standards, and specification of NHA so that after completion of this road, when heavy trucks and passengers coaches pass on this road these substandard quality retaining walls will be not bear their load and lest they fell down in the rive. Because these retaining walls have been damaged at so many Places where neither heavy debris has fallen on it nor flood water has passed over it, rather they are collapsing automatically due to not existing its foundation and substandard quality work.
