Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan was informed on Friday that work on the first phase of the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) — Green Line and Orange Line — in Karachi would begin next month and be completed within one year. Dr Ibad, who chaired a meeting at Governor House on transport projects in Karachi, was given a detailed briefing by the chief executive of the Karachi Infrastructure Development Board regarding the Green Line, Orange Line, Yellow Line and Blue Line projects of the BRTS. The official said that the Green Line project — from Surjani Town to M.A. Jinnah Road — would be completed with an estimated cost of Rs16.85 billion to be funded by the federal government. In order to expedite the implementation of Green Line, the federal government had already released a major portion of the estimated cost, he said, adding that the provincial government was also trying hard to execute its Orange Line project — from Orangi Town to Nazimabad — in the same time frame. As the history of several mass transit schemes for Karachi shows, donors walked away frustrated because Islamabad and Karachi failed to demonstrate the political will that was needed to execute a rail-based project.Undeniably, there were many hurdles, including the stupefying scale of encroachments on KCR lands. That problem will affect the BRTS project too, because the dimensions of the illegal occupation of public lands are so overwhelming that it will need a determined bid by the government to clean it up. We hope the deadline regarding the completion of work will be maintained and the people of the nation’s biggest city will finally have at least the kind of mass transit system that Lahore and Rawalpindi-Islamabad have.
pk.shafaqna.com
