Earlier it was the sit-ins and then Eid holidays that slowed down work on the 13.9km-long Islamabad section of the metro.

However, after a gap of three months, work has picked up pace. Authorities are confident that the project will be completed by the end of January 2015.

“We have extended the deadline by one month due to these political disturbances,” said Metro Bus Project Implementation Committee Chairman Hanif Abbasi.

In order to complete work in an effective manner, the Islamabad section of the metro bus was divided into five packages and bidding for each package was held separately.

Work on some packages, especially 3, 4 and 5, has just begun. “Due to security reasons, trucks bringing in construction material were not allowed into Islamabad, and this contributed to the delay,” said Chaudhry Amir Latif, contractor for package 3.

Work has faced the greatest delay at Peshawar Mor Interchange mainly because of mismanagement, as the contractor has not effectively mobilised machinery and manpower.

“The main problem is that the contractor is NLC which is not a builder itself so it has sublet the contract to a smaller contractor and mobilisation got delayed as the NLC finalised details with the contractor,” said an engineer affiliated with the project.

Published in Dawn, November 2nd, 2014