close
Friday March 29, 2024

PM’s decision on access road to new airport being implemented

ISLAMABAD: Practical steps have been taken to connect the Kashmir Highway with the New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) though the shortest link road, as approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif. The National Highway Authority (NHA) has invited bids for the ‘construction of the main link road (access controlled)’ to the

By Usman Manzoor
February 21, 2015
ISLAMABAD: Practical steps have been taken to connect the Kashmir Highway with the New Islamabad International Airport (NIIA) though the shortest link road, as approved by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
The National Highway Authority (NHA) has invited bids for the ‘construction of the main link road (access controlled)’ to the NIIA, which will be 13.5-kilometer long starting from Golra More. The project will also include construction of a flyover, toll plazas and service roads on and along the link road. It is worth mentioning here that a major portion of the access road is already built and is used to approach Islamabad Motorway (M-2) toll plaza whereas NHA will have to build afresh a 4-kilometer road from Motorway Zero Point to the New Airport to give access to the airport from the twin cities.
“The Prime Minister’s Office is monitoring the implementation of the decision so that the access road, as authorised, is built before the NIIA is completed,” an official told The News. He said that any deviation from the decision would render the concerned officials liable to appropriate action.
NHA has invited sealed bids from eligible bidders who can prove their eligibility and qualification as mentioned in the bidding documents for the project. The pre-bid meeting is scheduled for March 5. Eligible parties can submit their bids till March 25. The estimated cost of the project is Rs11.5 billion, which includes construction of flyover, toll plazas and service roads on and along the link road. Even then, it is much less than other proposed link roads, which the prime minister had rejected for being very expensive and zigzag.
The bidding will be carried out by adopting ‘single stage two envelope” procedure. Bidders are required to register with the Pakistan Engineering Council with a valid registration certificate in category C-A with specialisation in CE-01 & 02 for the year 2015. The interested parties can get the bidding documents from February 25. The pre-bid meeting will take place on March 5, 2015 at the NHA auditorium. The bidders have been advised to visit the site before attending the pre-bid meeting. The technical bids will be opened on the same day in the presence of bidders’ representatives. The financial bids of technically qualified bidders will be opened later the date of which will be communicated after evaluation of the technical bids.
The prime minister approved the most cost-effective, straight and trouble-free link road from the Kashmir Highway to the new under construction Islamabad airport rejecting the zigzag and expensive routes. This is the shortest, inexpensive and hassle-free access to the new airport as originally planned, in accordance with the Islamabad master plan.
Other plans had proposed zigzag approach links that would have cost around Rs40 billion because an entirely new access road had to be constructed to link the new airport with the federal capital in violation of the Islamabad master plan. The News has been highlighting the issue and many stories were published highlighting that the cost of the new airport has scandalously escalated to close to Rs100bn from its original expenditure of Rs30bn because of bureaucratic incompetence apart from the time wasted in completing the project while any zigzag access road would put more burden on the national exchequer.
The approved access road will directly touch the new airport’s parking area while the other proposals, which have been rejected by the PM, were designed in such a manner that a passenger would have to travel precisely two and a half kilometers inside the airport, close to its several key installations, before reaching the parking lot.
Moreover, in the case of the approved access road, no major land acquisition is involved. For 4-kms stretch that is to be built afresh, the housing towns through which the link road is to pass have already committed to the NHA free-of-cost land for 2 KM portion. However, land would have to be acquired for the remaining 2 km portion, which doesn’t involve high cost.