Daily 50,000 passengers will travel by new bus service, ride made free during holy month of Ramazan
Zubair Qureshi
Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif on Saturday inaugurated the Metro bus service from Islamabad’s Peshawar Mor (G-9/4) to the Islamabad International Airport (IIA).
The Islamabad Metro Bus Service is expected to benefit nearly 50,000 commuters every day. The project was supposed to be launched in 2018 but was delayed.
On Monday while addressing the launching ceremony, the prime minister blamed Imran Khan’s Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) for the delay in the launch of the project and regretted that the route plan for Islamabad was reduced abruptly to cut the cost from Rs16 billion to Rs12bn, which he said, caused immense loss to the project’s materialization.
Shehbaz Sharif said though development funds were available to complete public welfare projects during the PTI’s tenure, what the previous government lacked was the will to serve the masses.
He recalled that the PML-N government, during its previous tenure, had launched mass transit projects in Lahore, Rawalpindi and Multan but the PTI lawyers had made several attempts to halt those projects alleging corruption.
“The Orange Line mass transit train in Lahore faced litigation by PTI that caused its delay by over two years. In the end, other than a few technical points, the court gave a clean chit to the project and ruled that not an ounce of corruption was found,” he said.
Shehbaz also promised to ensure quick implementation on all the projects that were of public importance but were delayed or suspended.
He announced that during the month of Ramazan, the metro bus service for passengers would be free of cost. He added that a mobile application was being launched for easy access to the buses that would come every five minutes and the shuttle that would arrive at the stop every 25 minutes. The blue line bus will be initiated on the Rawat-Islamabad Airport route, he further said.
Immediately after assuming office of the Prime Minister, Shehbaz Sharif has been visiting the construction sites attending briefing regarding their timely completion and maximum utility.
A day earlier, he visited the Rawal Chowk Flyover construction site and directed immediate completion of the project without compromising over its quality of work.
He directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to complete the project by September 1 this year.
The prime min ister was told the project had been stalled since August last year due to various financial and technical issues. The prime minister ordered an inquiry into the delay of the project and made it clear such a lethargic attitude would not be tolerated. He also directed complete audit of the project by a third party.
