Pakistan to cement Delhi’s infrastructure for Games

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New Delhi, Jul 4: Archrival Pakistan has turned out to be an unusual ally in Delhi’s preparedness for Commonwealth Games 2010. Acting on Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit’s request, the neighbouring country has agreed to enhance cement supplies in order to accelerate the pace of construction on infrastructure projects.

The projects were getting delayed due to the sudden increase in cement prices in India.

Now, both the countries are working on ways to enable greater supply of cement from Pakistan by removing procedural constraints at the Wagha border. This step was taken after four major infrastructure projects including stadiums, a media centre and a hostel worth Rs 300 crore, had not found any contractors due to the steep rise in prices of steel, cement and other raw materials.

The Delhi government too, expressed its inability to address their concerns over the unprecedented rise in the prices of cement, sources in the state government told FE.

The projects include a Rs 100-crore wrestling stadium, a Rs 25-crore hostel, a media centre at Indira Gandhi Stadium, a space planning project worth Rs 100 crore at Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and a Rs 70-crore project to refurbish Karni Singh Stadium in Tughlakabad. The last day for submitting tenders for these projects was April 24, which has been postponed to last week of June. This was the sixth postponement due to lack of bidders.

Besides, eight projects at Indira Gandhi Stadium, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium and Shyama Prasad Mukherjee Stadium are progressing at a slow pace, due to delay in the procurement of key raw materials.

Builders say steel and cement, which together constitute around 60% of the total input cost of any stadium project, have become substantially more expensive. It will be difficult to go ahead with these projects without a suitable compensation mechanism, they say.

An official of the Builders Association of India on condition of anonymity said, “Builders have decided to boycott all future projects related to the Commonwealth Games on the ground that existing cost escalation norms, linked to Wholesale Price Index, are not commensurate with the actual increase in price of raw materials. So we have demanded that the CPWD and the urban development ministry rework the cost escalation norms and link them to the base prices of commodities published every month by the CPWD, which we think are more realistic’’.

An official of the CPWD said the directorate of CPWD studied the matter and recommended a change in the central contract conditions to address these issues raised by the builders.

“The state government had written to the Centre for permission to import cheap cement from Pakistan for construction of Commonwealth Games projects Delhi chief minister Sheila Dikshit said.

“Pakistani cement is being presently used in the projects. There is cost escalation of projects, especially flyovers, stadium and low cost houses for the games,” the chief minister added.

The move is expected to increase total cement imports from Pakistan to 6 lakh tonne by July-end, compared to 3 lakh tonne imported during the last six months.

This will not only address India’s problem of supply constraints for the commodity, but will accelerate the pace of construction of the pending projects for Commonwealth Games. Talks are on to put in place a conveyor belt at the border, on which cement bags can be loaded from Pakistan, pass through an X-ray machine attached on the Indian side and then get unloaded. This would save the authorities the hassle of unloading sacks one at a time from trucks and screening them individually.

Officials said Pakistan produces 5-7 million tonne surplus cement every month. “Supplies from other side have been 3 lakh tonne so far. The amount of import will at least double by July-end. Cement prices have gone up from about Rs 150 for a 50 kg bag to about Rs 220-260 for a 50 kg bag in the past one year.