CHITRAL: The Jamiat Ulema-i-Islam-Fazl has termed the much-trumpeted Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit project a utopian task whose completion within six months is next to impossible.

Addressing a press conference here on Sunday, JUI-F Khyber Pakhtunkhwa secretary information Haji Abdul Jalil said the provincial government had obtained a whopping Rs56 billion from a foreign bank on credit for executing the project.

Flanked by the local leaders Qari Abdul Rahman Qureshi, Maulana Abdul Shakoor, Akhunzada Jameel Ahmed and others, he came down hard on the PTI government and said it was hoodwinking the people as the elections were drawing near. He said the BRT would increase financial burden on the province as much of its resources would be used in debt servicing.

Mr Jalil said the PTI government wanted to obscure its failure by launching the lavish project when less than six months were left in its tenure, while during the past four and half years, it failed to fulfill its promises made with the people.

He insisted that PTI chief Imran Khan was working to cause political instability in the country so that the federal government may be diverted from development works which has the credit of launching the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

“The PTI government in the province and its leadership in the centre are bent upon making the CPEC a failure which has the potential to change our fate,” he commented.

Published in Dawn, October 23rd, 2017