DUSHANBE, June 165, 2009, Asia-Plus — Completion of the first phase of the Dushanbe-Khujand-Chanak hiway rehabilitation project has been postponed till late August or early September this year, Rustam Abdulloyev, the deputy director of the project implementation unit (PIU), said in an interview with Asia-Plus.
According to him, the first phase of the project was supposed to be completed this month but for a number of objective reasons that have resulted from financial and economic crisis as well as heavy rains and mudslides the completion of the first phase has been postponed till late August or early September.
Abdulloyev notes that 233 kilometers of the highway, including 50 kilometers in the Varzob district and 183 kilometers in the territory of Sughd province, have already been rehabilitated. “It remains to rehabilitate the remaining 112 kilometers to the Uzbek border town of Chanak,” the PIU official said.
The first phase of the project includes rehabilitation of the 345-kilometer highway from Dushanbe, construction of large, medium-sized and small bridges, with a total length of 1,777 meters, as well as construction of 5,974 meters of pipes, some 20,000 meters of relieving walls and 200 kilometers of drainage ditches, Abdulloyev said.
The second phase of the project includes construction of a 5,253-meter tunnel under the Shahriston pass.
As it had been reported earlier, some 55 percent of the Shahriston tunnel has been built by May 22 this year.
The third phase includes construction of 23 anti-avalanche galleries with a total length of 3,645 meters. Nine anti-avalanche galleries with a total length of 2,100 meters have already been built.
“The second and the third phases of the project are supposed to be completed in July 2010 and an official reintroduction of the highway into operation would be held in September 2011, when Tajikistan will mark the 20th anniversary of its independence,” Abdulloyev said.
We will recall that Chinese company, China Road & Bridge Corporation, won the tender and Beijing offered Tajikistan grants and loans to fund the project. The rehabilitation of the road and construction of the tunnel started in the summer of 2006.
A total project cost is estimated at $295.9 million, including $281.2 million provided by the Chinese government in a form of a long-term loan. The loan carries a 20-year period and an interest rate of 2 percent per annum. The remaining some $14.8 million are provided by the government of Tajikistan.
