Islamabad: Rains expose poor quality of development work

[Naveed Yaseen]

Just a few moderate early monsoon showers and the poor quality of the workmanship as well as bad material used for the construction of roads in the federal capital stands badly exposed!

This dangerous depression appeared at a section of the newly constructed road along the ‘7th Avenue’ close to dear old ‘Kulsoom Plaza Chowk’ on Thursday morning. One must appreciate the close vigilance by the Capital Development Authority (CDA) officials who immediately spotted the ‘bad patch’ and rushed to mend the damage.

Men and machines were rushed and the ‘bad patch’ was quickly dug up for further compaction and re-surfacing of this part. As is evident from the picture the compaction work originally done here had left a lot to be desired.

But looking at the things around here it seems that this is just the beginning. The seams of these ‘quality works’ done by the contractors engaged by the CDA for the construction of roads seem to be already bursting.

This is the third incident, after the ‘Islamabad Expressway’ section from Faizabad to Kashmir Chowk and the ‘Shaheed-e-Millat road underpasses, that we have encountered incidents which have exposed the bad quality of work. We wonder if somebody somewhere in the CDA or one of those contractors would be held accountable for all this mess!

And all this has started happening following brief spells of heavy downpour while the monsoon has yet to settle in with its full force and fury! It is highly appreciable that the concerned offices in the CDA have been responding quickly to such problems and such damages are being repaired quickly. But where were these officials responsible to keep a watch on the quality control and what they were doing when this work was being undertaken?

We do hope that this one ‘timely stitch’ will save not only nine but many more on such bad patches that seem eminent to appear soon! But the fact is that this would not be the only problems the authority needs to be prepared to deal with this monsoon if the forecasts by the Met Office about ‘above normal’ rainfall this monsoon stood correct!

The way large pools and puddles have appeared on most of the roads, including the newly constructed ones, after each spell of rain this season so far has also exposed the lack of planning for storm water drainage as well.

The people in the ‘Environment Directorate’ must have been very pleased with the early start of monsoon as there are fewer chances of bush fires erupting on the Margallas, which have always been a source of grave concern during the hot summer seasons in the past.

But, it appears that the officials in the Directorate of Municipal Administration would be required to be prepared to deal with much more trickier situations this monsoon season!

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=119914