Metro stations need urgent attention

Rawalpindi : The 22.5 km long Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Service operating in the twin cities seems to be facing sheer negligence in proper maintenance and timely repairs.

Rs44.31 billion were spent on the project ahead of its opening in June 2015, and the service won many accolades for providing a swift and honourable way of travelling between the twin cities. However, with passage of time, the situation has changed somewhat. It seems little attention is being paid to proper maintenance of the service as many stations have developed different structural faults particularly to mention, the station at Kashmir Highway. The ceilings have developed cracks at different places, floor tiles are broken at different points, ceiling walls are leaking heavily forcing the staff to place buckets on floors along with pieces of worn out clothes. At some places work on checking the leakages has been done by covering it with cement. But no whitewash has been done to cover it. Overall the condition of this station shows poor work being carried by the concerned authorities to run the affairs of the major transport service of the twin cities these days.

Apart from the structural issues of this station, no maintenance work seems to have been done on maintenance of elevators, which are not working at different stations causing great hardships for passengers particularly ladies, elderly and handicapped persons.

Similarly, no attention is being paid towards the maintenance of metro buses which are around 67 in number. In several buses, cooling system has developed fault and people are forced to travel in heat and humidity, while the public address system in many buses have also developed faults because of which people find difficulty in getting information about their stations.

The people while giving views to this correspondent expressed their great anguish and concern over the worsening condition of metro stations as well as problems started to have developed in buses. Billions of rupees were spent on this project but no proper work was carried out to launch this transport service in the twin cities. Due to improper and substandard work, the condition of metro stations started to deteriorate within three years. In this regard they referred to broken tiles on floor and stairs, cracks have developed on roofs with leakages.

The people said that as Sheikh Rasheed would be taking the charge of Rawalpindi, he should take notice and enforce measures for improving and revamping the overall condition of metro bus stations as well as its buses. A probe into substandard and improper work done on this project should also be done to ascertain the facts why condition of metro stations have started to deteriorate in a small period of three years if billions of rupees were spent . The related authorities should be brought to book and punished, they demanded.

On contacting incharge of Metro Bus Authority, Ms Shumaila said that they were fully aware of the situation related to maintenance and repair work of metro stations. “I personally visited some stations particularly Kashmir Highway. The MBA are floating tenders to invite contractors in connection with starting work on revamp and improving the condition of metro stations. The entire process of tenders floating and awarding contract would be completed within one month. After this repair work would begin,” she added.