BRT, if says, is the mother of all mega projects of the previous PTI KP government but it seems to me to be the biggest project in the history of the province as never before in the province has such a huge amount of money been allocated for any other project. It takes even more than five years to complete such a project normally, but the PTI started work on it in its last year and set a target of completing it in six months, and the work started too fast as in the next eight months elections were to be held later. As it seemed that the project would be completed on time but the term of the government expired and even the six months targeted tenure for the completion had got elapsed, the then Chief Minister Pervez Khatak informed the PDA which was overseeing the project, suspends project head, convinces people that provincial government is not to be blamed for, however, the PTI was saying that since we had released all the funds, there has been a slight delay but the plan will be completed. But PTI left work on the BRT incomplete because they did not believe that they would return to power again. During this time, the PTI played the BRT cards very cleverly at the right time and took full credit of the project and again won the provincial election with an even greater majority and in the whole country as well. But the PTI did not believe that they would regain power in the province. As the tradition goes, once a party has ruled Pakhtunkhwa, it has never had a chance.
Came in power in KPK again, PTI got caught in its own trap. Now the captain, chief minister, was changed and everyone was saying that the reasons for the delay in completion of BRT were the inexperienced captain ie the new chief minister and not maintaining continuity. But in my opinion, the reasons for the delay are not these but something else. Closing the sea in a jar, means completing the five-six-year plan in six months and then putting it under the supervision of Pakhtunkhwa Urban Mobility and PDA, who had never seen such a big project on paper as they had to do in six months. ۔ Secondly, in a city where the roads and population are overcrowded and narrow, where the power lines and gas pipes are very tight, in such an area, would such a project take six months to complete?. However, it is impossible. But if you look, in the first six months, almost half of the work was completed, while much work had been done so far that it looked like a matter of a few months. However, if it is completed by October 2020, it will still be appreciated.
But now let compares the speed of work on PTI BRT with the speed of construction of projects completed by the previous ANP GOVT. Being in student life, Whenever I used to go to the University of Peshawar in 2009, the ANP government started working on the construction of Mufti Mehmood flyover, It was barely two kilometers long and took more than two years to complete. I used to analyze the progress due to that I face much traffic, James. Now, of course, because of work on BRT in progress, the citizens faced many problems, especially after the rains, the city becomes a pool of water. And traffic jams for hours. However, due to its width on University Road, the inclusion of Service Road on both sides in it looks like an ugly stain on the face of the project which will further aggravate the traffic problems there. It would not be a bad thing if it gets delayed little more but must be completed because if we look at other aspects of BRT, the biggest benefit to the residents will be that it will be less noisy as compared to the noise of the old public transport buses and wagons. Get rid of the smoke and pollution from their old engines and clean up the atmosphere for the first time. Because of this BRT, 31,000 metric tons of carbon dioxide, released by that public transports, will not contaminate the atmosphere annually. The 26-kilometer BRT with 31 stations will benefit four lakh commuters daily. The journey from one corner of the city to another will take about half an hour. After that, if the city’s population doubles or more, the shortage can only be met by adding buses without disturbing the route.
On the other hand, some people like me are saying that with this money they could have built another new city on one side. So for those people, this is a grant from the Asian Development Bank, which means that you have to spend on the project for which this fund is being given, on a very reasonable interest rate. while if another new city is settled instead of this BRT project, even if it is done, the hospitals, colleges, and universities of this old city cannot be removed and the traffic between them could not be controlled and no fast transport can be provided apart from this project. Some people are comparing it with the Lahore and Islamabad metros. Yes, we believe that they were completed in their time, but at least not in a short period of six months. Work on the Metro from Islamabad City to the new Islamabad International Airport began in early 2017, which has been incomplete for two and a half years with not so many bridges and tunnels as BRT HAVE, while Lahore and Pindi metro projects were completed on time but their files caught fire and the smoke of which also smelled of corruption.
