Armalik Laman Road Project

1. Introduction

The Ministry of Public works  Government of Afghanistan is implementing a number of National Highway projects which involve design, rehabilitation and reconstruction. The primary road network of Afghanistan comprises of the Ring Road connecting the major cities of Kandahar, Herat, Mazar-e-Sharif and Kabul, and the international links with neighboring countries Iran, Pakistan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.

  The road project Herat - Andkhoy is being implemented by MoT and a segment of it is from Armalik (Herat) to Laman (Badghis) which starts from KM 60+000 and ends at KM 112+500 and Sabzak Pass is also included in this segment.  The Saudi Fund Development (SFD) has granted fund to MoT to implement Armalik – Laman Ring Road Segment which is 52 km in length (revised 52.514 km length) by a contractor (Cinderella Construction Company). It is a design – build project and the contractor has a separate design team for road designing.

 

The initial budget of this project was 38,786,895.29 USD and after completion of 65% of design, variation No.1 was approved which was 47,477,877.90 USD. After 100% completion of design the final revised variation was approved by NPA on 26/05/2018 which is 60,881,952.70 USD which includes security budget of 4.5 million USD and 2.0 million USD as contingency amount.

 

Upon receiving work order letter from MoT, contractor has mobilized its key personnel from Afghanistan, while additional supporting personnel have been mobilized from local community. Major construction plants and equipment have been mobilized on site such as; asphalt plant, crush plant, Concrete Batching Plant, winch machine (boring machine) for Drilling, paver machines, tandems, and PTRs.

 

The said project of Armalik – Laman is 52.5 Km in length, 7m wide asphalt paved surface course and 1.5m shoulder on both sides of pavement. It includes a single span bridge, culvert, drainages, protection walls, Retaining walls, Guardrails, tone patching, excavation and formation of embankment, formation of Sub grade, Sub Base Course ,Macadam Aggregate  Base course, Asphalt Binder course, Asphalt wearing course to be built according to Afghanistan Highways Standards and International Highways Standards.

 

2. Executive Summary

        The execution of work was suspended from 21^st November 2019 and re-executed from 26^th May 2020. The Reason that the execution of work was started late as compared to previous years was the excuse of contractor due to outbreak of COVID-19.

Despite that the MOT and the PIU directorate gave several written and verbal instructions to the contractor to take health and safety precautions for the control of outbreak of COVID-19 and execute the work on site but he insisted on his excuse and wasted almost 2 working months during 2020.

After the execution of work after 26^th May, 2020 the activities continued with the following details:

Sr No.	Station	Activities	Completion %
1	60+000 to 89+860	Nil	100%
2	89+860 to 92+000	Cutting in Progress	80%
3	92+000 to 93+000	Cutting Completed	100
4	93+000 to 96+500	Asphalt Completed	50%
5	96+500 to 97+000	Cutting in Progress	80%
6	97+000 to 98+000	Subgrade First Layer completed	75%
7	98+000 to 99+000	Cutting in Progress	60%
8	99+000 to 101+500	Cutting in progress	75%
9	101+500 to 112+514	Nil	100%

2.1   Progress Summary

 

2.2   Financial Summary

            The total cost of the project as per Final Revised Bill of Quantity (BOQ) (26/0/2018) is $60,881,952.70 out of which $56,467,083.78 had been approved for contractor till 17^th  Augest, 2020.

3. Manpower

            The personnel engaged in construction works during this reporting period included Survey Engineers, Site Engineers, Lab Technician, foremen, skilled labors, semiskilled labors, unskilled labors, equipment operators and also in the administrative aspect of the works included purchaser, security guards, drivers and cleaners.

4. Safety Issues

                  Despite the several written and verbal notice given to the contractor regarding full implementation of employees and labors safety and health terms and conditions of the contract, the contractor has continuously neglected and is taking this issue lightly. But still the PIU site team tries to provide safe and healthy environment for the employees and labors involved in project by implementing the OSHA’s standards to avoid any kind of safety and health incidents on site during the working hour.

Meanwhile the good news is that the contractor has recruited a nurse for control of outbreak of COVID-19 and has also arranged first aid services for this purpose.

5. Security Issues

                  The security situation remained satisfactory throughout the project during this reporting period but few attacks on ANA and Police were reported during this reporting period. Though the security remained satisfactory throughout the project but the contractor is neglecting and is not implementing the security plan submitted by him to NSC and we had informed him several times to install check points at mostly effected areas and implement the security plan in order to ensure the security throughout the project despite that he is being paid for the security of the project.

6. Challenges

                  The major challenge for the project during this year is the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic and for this purpose The PIU team has made a risk mitigation plan and has also instructed the contractor to increase the machinery and manpower to accelerate the progress. Meanwhile The PIU team has instructed the contractor to either work in two shifts or increase the working hour for the purpose of acceleration of the work to be able to finish the project within the timeline.

 

 

Kabul Ring Road Lot Two Update Reports:

The Design of lot two is under process, and complete about 40 percent, according to our plan it should be completed till end of September 2020, for speeding the design of the project in coordination of ministry of finance we hired an international Indian company to do the design of this section and we communicated with OHIO university to review the design of the project to prevent any kind of variation to the project. We have requested 100,000 USD from Saudi fund for development to pay to OHIO University for their review. We expecting from respected SFD to give us NOL in this regards. Stile we did not received the NOL of this amount and we are waiting for till now to the NOL for further process.

Land accusation of the project is under process and 80 percent of people property has been specified and the rest of them will completed by end of October 2020 according our plan.