This March 23 will mark one year that the grand Metro Bus Project has been under construction in Rawalpindi and Islamabad, but its end looks nowhere near. With the deadline of completing the Rs44 billion project on January 31 missed, the promise that it would ease life for the commuters of the twin cities has reduced to a faint hope.

All that the hapless citizens care for now is that the massive mess that the undertaking has created along the metro bus route is cleared first. Dust, debris, diversions and long detours around dug up roads have paralysed life and destroyed existing infrastructures and green belts and environment in the two cities with a combined population of nearly four million.

All agree that the twin cities badly needed a modern public transport system but the wisdom of running a bus service over elevated track in the densely populated Rawalpindi, and on a dedicated route on ground in Islamabad was challenged at the very start. But contractors and authorities sold on the successful launch of the metro bus in Lahore prevailed.

Also read: Metro bus track now opens by March end

That excuses for delay and poor workmanship are now being made is a different story. As someone commented, “to err is human; to blame someone else is politics”.

Critics say that Rawalpindi has suffered most from the alleged ill planning and bad workmanship. It is all there to see along the 11-kilometre long elevated track from Saddar to Faizabad over the main arterial Benazir Bhutto Road.

Construction material and debris have damaged footpaths, drains, green belts and service streets making them impassable. Street lights and the computerised traffic control system are dead. The flyovers at Chandni Chowk and the 6th Road, built at great cost, have also suffered damage.

“Millions will be required to restore these infrastructures, if and when the construction mess is cleared,” said a resident of the area.

What agitates many would-be commuters is no feeder service links the metro bus stations to busy places like the airport and the railway station. Neither drop-off zones and a bus or a taxi lay-by have been constructed for the purpose. “It seems the metro bus was designed not with people in mind but political gains,” observed a critic.

Malik Shakil Awan, a former PML-N MNA and member of the Metro Bus Project Implementation and Monitoring Committee, and Faheem Siddiqui, chairman of the Traders’ Action Committee, are also critical of the problems created by “the bad planning and execution” of the gigantic work.

They say that the heavy concrete pillars of the elevated track are not well aligned between Waris Khan and Liaquat Bagh, and Mareer Chowk and the Ministry of Defence building and reflect poor engineering. Drains in the two section also are of uneven level and will choke during monsoon and flood the Benazir Bhutto Road.

Faheem Sadiqui believes that the Punjab’s PML-N government was “trapped by its local leadership, and some so-called traders for launching the metro bus project, not realising the discomfort and losses it will bring to the people and traders of the city”.

“If the project is not completed by mid March, and the traders are not compensated for the loss their businesses have suffered over the past one year a protest will be organised,” he threatened.

When construction started in March last year, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had tasked the special branch of Rawalpindi police to monitor the pace of work and report him weekly. He did not want the people to suffer the pain beyond January 2015, the deadline set for completing the mega project.

And orders went out to the city administration to spruce up the alternative routes designated for smooth flow of traffic at the construction sites. Funds were released for the purpose. But the orders did not materialise.

“We have received dust masks only once since the work started and nothing else,” a traffic warden at a work site said.

Though the funds were all spent reflection jackets, mega phones, reflection tape, rubber cones, heavy torches, rain coats, electric rods, umbrellas, warning lights, long shoes etc the police allegedly never arrived.

Meanwhile, officials overseeing the huge project have installed a laser beam show atop the elevated bus track to what a citizen called “not to entertain but to fool the restive population”.

“They say the project may be completed in March, but nobody tells when the dug up Benazir Bhutto Road will be re-carpeted,” said the frustrated citizen.

Published in Dawn, February 28th, 2015

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