KARACHI: The at-grade construction of the Bus Rapid Transit Green Line infrastructure from the Numaish traffic intersection to Municipal Park would reduce space for other road users and pedestrians, said a senior government official on Friday.

Karachi Infrastructure Develop­ment Company Limited (KIDCL) chief financial officer Zubair Channa told Dawn that the portion of the project had been in discussion between the company and the Sindh government for the past eight months.

Against the backdrop of the Sindh government’s recent decision to construct the Numaish-Municipal Park patch of Green Line at-grade to ensure early completion of the venture, Mr Channa said: “The Sindh government is of the opinion that an elevated or underground passage would hinder future developments whereas technical experts suggest that at-grade construction would greatly reduce the road width and turn the four-lane thoroughfare into a two-lane road.”

KIDCL official says despite reservations the project will be built according to Sindh govt’s instructions

The step would cause a lot of public inconvenience as it was a very busy area and a feasible option could have been building an underground passage, he added.

He further argued that it was solely a matter of public convenience as underground construction would have required more funds. Also, a BRT project should be given a straight passage without traffic signals otherwise its utility and benefits would be reduced, he said.

“The at-grade construction of this passage would likely cost around Rs700 million to Rs800m but a tunnel would have cost around Rs3.5 billion, which is budgeted,” he said.

“Having said that, we will go by the provincial government’s decision. It’s their domain and we will build the project according to their instructions,” he said.

Mr Channa rejected reports of a delay in the project and said that the ongoing work at the Numaish intersection would complete by this December and an underground passage could have been built by the time procurement process for buses was completed.

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah had recently held a meeting at the CM house to review the Karachi Mass Transit and BRT projects.

The meeting participants, including transport minister, chief secretary, planning and development chairperson, local government secretary, were of the view that the construction of a tunnel on M.A. Jinnah Road up to Municipal Park would not only increase the cost of the project manifold but would affect businesses along the passage and M.A. Jinnah Road’s connectivity to other bus routes, such as from Lyari, Keamari and Hawkesbay.

Published in Dawn, July 6th, 2019