PESHAWAR: The Board of Investment and Trade (BoIT) on Wednesday approved the construction of 26km highway alongside the existing railway track and plying of modern metro bus service on it under the Peshawar Mass Transit System Corridor One from Nasirpur area on GT Road to Hayatabad Karkhano Market area.

The approval was given during a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Pervez Khattak at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat here after threadbare discussion, said a handout.

The project which will meet the east-west longest ends of the city will be completed under public private partnership at the estimated cost of Rs14 billion under the supervision of industrialist and BoIT vice chairman Mohsin Aziz.

Three local companies has already shown interest to invest money in the mega project.

The participants decided that the project would be advertised after the preparation of PC-1 and formal approval of the board so that besides transparency and spirit of competition, the maximum and large scale investment could also be ensured in it.

It was noted during comparative survey presentation of the consultant between introducing mono-train and metro bus service that the rapid train service would cost Rs25 billion against Rs14 billion of the rapid metro bus.

The single route fare of the train will be Rs185 against that of the bus of Rs29 only.

The chief minister with the agreement of other participants approved the rapid bus service and asked the communication and works and planning and development departments to jointly prepare PC-1 of the project.

He directed the transport secretary to replace the old vegan and minibus services with the latest bus service on Chamkani-Karkhano Market route soon after completion of expansion of four lanes on each side of GT and Jamrud roads.

About the rapid bus service, the participants decided that the first phase of the project from Peshawar cantonment to Karkhano Market would be completed in six months, while the other would take nine months to complete due to traffic congestion in the city downtown.

They also agreed that bus service would be launched soon after completion of the first phase to reduce traffic burden inside the city, especially in the cantonment and Jamrud areas.

However, the chief minister ordered completion of both the phases within the deadline of one year after the start of work.

Under the plan, the rapid metro bus service will have well-furnished bus stops at 13 places, while the journey on its east-west ends could be covered in less than one hour with ease and comfort.

Published in Dawn, September 25th , 2014