KP govt gives new date of BRT Peshawar completion

PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Minister for Information Shaukat Yousafzai said on Tuesday that Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project will be operational until April, despite hurdles.

Speaking to Geo News programme ‘Geo Pakistan’, the minister said that when Chief Minister Mehmood Khan inspected the project, he was briefed that there are three phases of the project. He said that the third phase will be completed until February 15.

Earlier, the KP government had decided to approach Asian Development Bank (ADB) to conduct a forensic audit of the Peshawar BRT project. The project has only managed to achieve six percent of its development targets in the past six months. The ADB was to ascertain the elements responsible for the repeated delays in the project and the low standard work that was carried out. Work on the 27-kilometer BRT began in 2017 under the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government. The project envisioned to provide a public transportation corridor, running east to west, to the city of nearly 2 million.

The PTI administration had insisted that the BRT would be completed in six months at low cost. However, to date, the project is still ongoing, during which time its deadline of completion has been revised several times.