PESHAWAR: As much as five per cent of the new construction works` cost will be paid as service charges to the consultants to be hired for supervising public sector civil works in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, according to the relevant officials.

The officials told Dawn that out of every Rs1 billion to be spent on constructing new roads, bridges, buildings and other structures, around Rs50 million would be paidas consultant fees.

The provincial government`s annual development programme, according to sources, underlines a huge development agenda for the current financial year heavy with `brick and mortar` works.

Only in the case of the irrigation department, the cost of new development projects comes to over Rs13.8 billion of which the cost of major and minor projects with civil works has been estimated at Rs13.1 billion, as per the ADP document.`Consultants would get a total of five per cent of the civil works, including two per cent for preparing designs and another three per cent as supervision charges,` a local government and rural development department told Dawn.

The cost of land, said the official, would not be calculated to determine the consultants` fee.

Apart from the LG&RD department, the irrigation department has also identified civil works, including new and repair works, which would be assigned to consultants.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, leading the provincial coalition government in the province, has introduced a policy of hiring consultants to manage, supervise, monitor, and evaluate new civil works to be initiated by the government departments from now onward.

The LG&RD department, said an official, would hire consultants for some 12 new projects, involving construction of roads, buildings, and bridges apart from water supply and sanitation works.

The department, added the official, had completed pre-qualification of consultants and around 15 consultant firms would be engaged to carry forward the development agenda.`The scope of consultants` work,` said the official `would be determined in the PC-II documents of each of the 12 projects.

On its part, the irrigation de-partment has shortlisted six consultants for monitoring and supervision of the new civil works scheduled to be started in this fiscal. According to an official, three per cent to four per cent of the civil works` costs would be paid as consultants` fee.

`The department will hire six firms for 15 work packages that involve major and minor construction works, including new and repair construction works, said the irrigation department official.

Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, said another official, had directed the irrigation department to engage consultants for the small works as well.

In fulfillment of CM`s instructions, the department, said the official, had grouped together small civil works making `work packages`, making it manageable for the department to hire a limited number of consultants instead of hiring private firms for each of the small works separately.

The ADP includes irrigation sector schemes as small as of just Rs7 million involving theconstruction of a new minor channel from the main irrigation channel of Chanda Fateh Khan Dam, district Kohat.

Besides, in some instances the repair works, to be carried out under the upcoming canal cleaning campaign, the cost of completion would come to less than Rs1 million. In such cases, the small repair works would be grouped together and the wouldbe hired consultants would be assigned the work packages.

Officials said the concept of bringing in consultants to monitor official projects was not a new concept as medium to mega development works, including construction of dams, watercourses, irrigation channels, highways, bridges, and major buildings had long been carried out in the supervision of consultants.

`It would be for the first time that they would be hired for small works as well,` said an official. Similarly, foreign funded projects, too, are implemented with supervision by consultants who work in coordination with the project steering committees.