Sindh PA’s standing committee okays Mass Transit Authority Bill

KARACHI: The Sindh Assembly’s Standing Committee has okayed the government’s Sindh Mass Transit Authority Bill 2016 as the proposed government’s legislation would soon be presented in the provincial assembly.

The Sindh Assembly’s Standing Committee on Mass Transit met here on Wednesday with its chairman, MPA Muhammad Hussain Khan, chairing the meeting.  The Sindh Transport Minister and provincial secretary of Transport department also attended the meeting.

The standing committee has recommended that the proposed Mass Transit Authority should be headed by the elected mayor of Karachi as the chairman of the authority. The chairman of the standing committee said on the occasion that it had been recommended that the mayor of the city should head the proposed authority as several of the important mass transit projects would be fully implemented in Karachi and would provide due relief to the dwellers of the city in their daily needs of transportation.

Sindh Transport Minister Mumtaz Hussain Jakhrani informed the standing committee on the occasion that two mega-transport projects under the Bus Rapid Transit Service would be completed by March next year.

He said the prime minister was expected to visit Karachi this Friday to lay the foundation stone of the building of the Green line portion of the BRTS project. The transport minister said the Sindh government had decided to extend the Green line portion of the BRTS till Merewether Tower area. 

In this regard, recommendations would be presented before the prime minister as the Green line bus project would be implemented with support of the federal government. He told the standing committee that the green line bus project would be 17-kilometre-long service from the Power House Chowrangi in Surjani Town to the Municipal Park in Saddar.

The project would have an estimated cost of Rs1,814 million as work on the Green line service was started on 28 January 2016. The project is expected to be completed by27 March 2017. There would be a total of 22 passenger service stations built for the Green line service.

Work on the Orange Line component of the BRTS would be simultaneously started as its design would be finalized. The Orange Line section of the BRTS would be 2.2-kilometre long from Orangi Town to the Board office while it would be built with a cost of Rs 1.2 billion.  The Orange line section would merge with Green Line at the Board Office Chowrangi interchange.

The Green Line, Orange Line and Yellow line components of the BRTS would provide mass transit facility to one million dwellers of the city.  The proposed mass transit authority would also launch the Yellow line bus service, apart from BRTS, from Quaidabad to the Regal Chowk.