Chief Justice Saqib Nisar visits Peshawar today

PESHAWAR: The Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf-led government in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa seems scared as Chief Justice of Pakistan Justice Mian Saqib Nisar is due to visit the provincial capital today.

Senior government officials told The News that they had been communicated about the visit of the chief justice but were not in the know about the places he would like to visit in the city.

He will surely see the work on the much-publicised but ill-planned Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) which has become a nuisance for the residents of Peshawar.

“Frankly speaking everybody is concerned about the ill-planned BRT and the inconvenience it has caused to the people during the past six months,” a senior government official opined.

Pleading anonymity, he said though the BRT was a public friendly-project, it would be difficult for them to defend the way it has been undertaken.

“Right from Chamkani to Hayatabad, the entire road being used by almost 90 percent of the residents of Peshawar and its adjoining areas has been dug out. I am sure nobody would be able to satisfy the chief justice if he asked the government about any decent alternative routes arranged for unrestricted traffic movement and safety measures done for the people,” said the official.

The Peshawar Development Authority (PDA) is supervising the BRT work, but it seems to be lacking the capacity to cope with the task.

Besides common people, the working class and patients have been the worst sufferers of BRT.

Everyday patients complain of the poor traffic management on roads leading to hospitals.

“I decided to take my ailing grandfather to a private clinic in the Dabgari Garden in the evening as it was not possible to travel on any road during daytime. However, it took me two hours to cover three kilometers distance between Peshawar Cantonment and the Dabgari Garden as the only road leading to the locality was closed for traffic due to BRT,” complained Aamir Sohail, a resident of Peshawar Saddar.

“People are not against development work but the way BRT was started in Peshawar brought miseries to the people as the government failed to provide alternative routes to the public,” complained another frustrated resident.

Another resident Ahmad Khan said that like others he too wished the chief justice to ask the PTI-led government about the safety measures it had undertaken for the protection of the public.

“For the BRT, the government has cut down thousands of threes planted on GT Road. Interestingly, a PDA official claimed that half of the trees uprooted for BRT were not environment friendly. Why were the trees planted in the first place if these weren’t environment friendly?” he asked.

According to government officials, the Chief Justice is likely to visit a public sector hospital in the city.

“We don’t know but what we have been communicated is that he would like to visit a government hospital in Peshawar where PTI claimed to upgraded the level of services,” said the official on condition of anonymity.

He said efforts were underway to convince the chief justice to visit the Hayatabad Medical Complex (HMC), which offers good services compared to Lady Reading Hospital (LRH) and Khyber Teaching Hospital (KTH).

“It might embarrass the government and expose its claims of change in KP if the chief justice visited

LRH or KTH, where the patients have to wait for hours to get an OPD slip,” said the official.

It could expose the government’s claim about provision of better health services if the chief justice asked about the availability of cardiac surgery facilities in the public sector hospitals.

It might shock the chief justice if he came to know that LRH was the only public sector hospital in KP and Fata where a cardiac surgery unit was functioning, but the patients have to wait for years to undergo surgical procedures.