Though no longer CM, Khattak still faces blame for BRT delays

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s former chief minister Pervez Khattak has faced non-stop criticism for launching the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project in the provincial capital and setting unrealistic completion period of six months.

Pervez Khattak is no longer the chief minister and the position is now being held by Mahmood Khan, but he is invariably mentioned whenever the BRT is discussed because he had initiated the project and pushed the government functionaries and the contractors to complete it in six months.

The timeframe of six months was unbelievable, but Pervez Khattak continued to publicly claim that his government would manage to complete the huge BRT project in this period of time. He often cited the Hayatabad Flyover project in Peshawar that was indeed built in a record time to argue that the BRT too would be completed in record time. However, he failed to realize that the Hayatabad Flyover was a much smaller project than the BRT that passed through some of the most congested parts of Peshawar.

It is obvious that Pervez Khattak is generally held responsible for wrongly conceiving the BRT and failing to anticipate the likely delay in completing the project. Though his colleagues in the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) avoid mentioning his name while fending criticism regarding the BRT, it isn’t uncommon to hear some of them in private blaming him for the problems being encountered in the project.

As for the general public, Pervez Khattak and the PTI are often criticized on account of the BRT. In a recent video, a citizen without identifying himself directly addressed Pervez Khattak in Pashto and said he is now enjoying life in Islamabad as the federal defence minister while the residents of Peshawar are suffering due to the delay and high cost of the metro-bus project.

“I pray that your plane incidentally crosses into India by mistake so that you are captured and turned into Abhinandan,” the man remarked while referring to the Indian pilot who was captured after his warplane was shot down by Pakistan Air Force.

However, in another video clip a middle-aged woman said to be a housewife came to the PTI government’s rescue by arguing that one cannot build one’s house in six months so how come the government could complete this huge project in such a short period of time. “We are willing to wait and give them more time to complete this very important project,” she said.

Pervez Khattak has been defending himself by saying BRT was for the public and not for him as no personal interest was involved in the project. He said recently that action should be taken if any mistake has been committed in the BRT. He argued that the changes in the BRT design had caused delay in its completion. He said there was no sewerage system in the initial design. “The designing was done by the Asian Development Bank (ADB). Most of the project, however, is complete as the main corridor is ready,” he maintained.

He disputed the claim that even after two years the BRT is incomplete. “The project isn’t yet two years old and it is on course to completion,” he added.