PESHAWAR: The Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project of the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI)-led coalition government is seemingly destined to miss its deadline of six month as its engineering design is awaiting finalization and not a single pillar could be erected in the first month of its stipulated time. Exactly one month ago on October 19, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Chief Minister Pervez Khattak inaugurated work on the much-trumpeted BRT project with a pledge to complete it in six months. However, the pace of work is not yet in full swing. A visit to the site on Sunday revealed a different story as not even five percent of the infrastructure work on the mega project could be completed in the first month. The visit also revealed that the project lacked information management system and coordination between the quarters involved in the design engineering, construction, operation and business plan development. It was observed that none of the three main functionaries - the Project Management Unit in the Transport and Mass Transit Department, the executing agency of the project Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) and the company that is supposed to operate the bus service, Trans Peshawar, had any information about the level and scale of work and expenditures incurred on the project in the first month. This scribe contacted project directors in the PDA and Transport and Mass Transit Department to obtain information about the construction work that has been done and the expenses made, but none was in a position to give any specific figures. The BRT is the biggest urban transit project in the province with 26 kilometers length that would start from Chamkani and end in Hayatabad after passing through 31 stations. An official associated with the project, on condition of anonymity, told The News that expenses on infrastructure would reach Rs29 billion, but so far work worth Rs500 to 900 million only had been carried out. “Neither a single pillar could be erected nor a meter of the corridor built during the first month of the project. In terms of the expenditure ratio, construction work costing Rs4.83 billion should have been done by now,” he added. The contractors, the official said, have not yet moved the required machinery to the site. He claimed the timeline for the project has also not yet been finalised with the Asian Development Bank and other quarters concerned. He said that it may certainly go beyond six months. Engineer Syed Sajjad Khan, Project Director, Transport and Mass Transit Department, said the provincial government had been working over the last two years to develop institutional structure for the project that was the best one in the country. About the coordination issue, he said they were coordinating with the executing agency, PDA, Trans Peshawar, and other quarters concerned. However, he avoided any comment about the project deadline. Sajjad Khan explained that the PDA had been paid Rs160 million as service charges to look after the construction work of the project. “It (PDA) would be in a better position to give you one-month work and expenses estimation on the project,” he said. The BRT project director in PDA, Aminuddin, who sounded very optimistic about the timely completion of the project, said the work was going on the project as planned. However, he could not give exact estimates of the work done and the expenses incurred during the first month. However, jept staying work pace was satisfactory. To question, he informed this correspondent that about 10 to 12 pillars have been raised to the ground level. Work on five underpasses is going on day and night and it would surely get momentum in the days to come, he added. “Look this is weekly off, but I am on the site because I know the urgency of my work,” Aminuddin maintained. About the first-month expenses, he said, “right now I am not in a position to give any figure as we have not yet released a single penny to any of the contractors. Not even advance has been given to them, he concluded.
