FDE distributes 60 buses to ICT schools

Islamabad : The Federal Directorate of Education has distributed 60 buses to the governments schools and colleges it oversees in the Islamabad Capital Territory.

The Karachi-based Ghandhara Industries Limited, which assembles, manufactures and sells Isuzu automobiles in the country, has provided the yellow buses under the Prime Minister’s Education Reforms Programme and will provide more in the days ahead.

Under the PMERP launched in December 2015 to upgrade or put up facilities at government schools and colleges in Islamabad Capital Territory, 200 school buses were to be purchased in two phases.

The FDE, which oversees these educational institutions, had bought 70 buses last year in the first phase but the purchase of the rest was tied up in bureaucratic red tape.

The Ghandhara Industries had got the contract of supplying 130 buses to the FDE under the PMERP’s second phase earlier this year by placing the lowest bid but payments to it got delayed over certain ‘variations in bus specifications mentioned in the tender’ and thus, hampering the delivery of buses.

Fearing their lapse due to the end of the last PML-N-led government’s tenure on May 31, the FDE won over the erstwhile Capital Administration and Development Division in April for the release of all Rs 800 million bus funds to the Ghandhara Industries. The 60-65 seater and diesel-powered buses with the minimum 7,800cc engine have come with two years’ warranty for its parts and maintenance.