Lowari Rail Tunnel contract awarded to Korean firm
RECORDER REPORT
ISLAMABAD (September 20 2005): The National Highway Authority (NHA) has awarded the 'Lowari Rail Tunnel' construction contract to the second lowest bidder Sambu Construction Co Ltd at a cost of Rs 7.983 billion, and appointed Geoconsult-Typsa (JV) as consultant to the project.
Minister for Communications Muhammad Shamim Siddiqui and Secretary Communications also attended the contract signing ceremony here on Monday. Official sources told Business Recorder that President Pervez Musharraf will perform the groundbreaking ceremony of the project on September 28.
They said that the lowest bid of a Chinese company was rejected on the ground that it was even lower than the most conservative estimates of NHA engineers. Therefore, it was impossible to complete this project at the quoted cost within the stipulated time. Besides, the Korean construction company had greater experience and expertise of building such tunnels.
Sources said that 8.6 km long Lowari Rail Tunnel would be built along Nowshera-Mardan-Malakand-Dir-Chitral highway in three years along with 19 km long access roads to provide an all-weather road link to Chitral. :)
Addressing NHA General Managers conference, Minister Shamim called upon NHA to ensure timely completion of highway projects and transparency in financial affairs of the projects funded by Asian Development Bank.
He said that no political influence would be accepted about the under-construction Lyari Expressway and directed NHA to penalise the contractor for slow progress.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2005