New deadline set for BRT completion

PESHAWAR: Giving yet another headline for the completion of the mega Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Tuesday announced that it would be completed by June 30, 2020.

Speaking at a press conference, the provincial Minister for Transport Shah Mohammad Wazir and Advisor to Chief Minister on Merged Districts Ajmal Wazir, however, said that as per the agreement with the Asian Development Bank (ADB) the project was supposed to be completed by June 2021.

Blaming the previous federal government for the inordinate delay in the completion of the project, they said that due to the opposition by the previous rulers, land could not be acquired from the Pakistan Railways to undertake the project. They added that it was the personal opinion of the former Chief Minister Pervez Khattak, who is now Federal Defense Minister when he claimed that the BRT project in six months.

It is pertinent to mention that the provincial Information Minister Shaukat Yousafzai had earlier said that the project would be inaugurated in March 2020. The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) had stopped mentioning the completion date of the controversial metro project after missing a number of deadlines. The delays and the rise in cost have provided the opposition parties an opportunity to criticize the PTI government.