PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government has pushed the launch of the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit service to the end of coming June.

Last month, the then information minister, Shaukat Yousafzai, had claimed that the much-delayed Rs66 million project would be completed in April.

However, special assistant to the chief minister for local government Kamran Khan Bangash told Dawn on Wednesday that work on the project would finish by the end of the current fiscal.

Mr Bangash, who also happens to be the political boss of the Peshawar Development Authority (PDA), the project executing agency, said he had always been saying that the project would be completed by the end of June 2020.

Mr Bangash said Chief Minister Mahmood Khan wanted to announce the launch of the BRT service a week before the buses hit the road.

Bangash says CM to announce date

Mr Bangash claimed that most of the work on the corridor had been completed and that it had been handed over to the TransPeshawar for the installation of intelligent transport system (ITS).

TransPeshawar, a government owned company, is responsible for operating the Peshawar BRT service after the project’s completion.

He said the ITS installation along almost major portion of the BRT corridor and bus stations was in process, while civil work on the project was almost over.

The chief minister’s special assistant said currently, mock exercises were being carried out.

“By all means, we will complete the project by the end of the current year,” he said.

However, officials in TransPeshawar said they had only been given the control centre of the bus project located at the Chamkani bus depot.

“None of the bus stations or BRT corridor has been handed over to us,” an official said.

Sources told Dawn that the installation of ITS required at least 60 days after the completion of civil work.

A few months ago, the provincial government and the project contractors had signed a settlement agreement binding the contractors to complete civil work in 120 days.

The much-delayed bus project has seen several change of the project deadline, causing embarrassment to the ruling PTI.

The bus project, which was launched in Oct 2017, was initially to be completed in April 2018. However, the first deadline was missed. Thereafter, the project managers kept changing the launch dates from May 20 to June 30 to Dec 31 in 2018 and March 23, 2019, while the project cost jumped to Rs66.43 billion from the initial Rs49 billion due to the frequent retrofitting and design changes. Earlier last month, the project managers again decided to revise the project PC-1 to account for Rs4.2 billion cost overrun after which the project cost would jump up to over Rs 70.7 billion.

In Nov 2018, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council had project’s revised cost of Rs66.43 billion stipulating the June 2019 to be project completion month, while the provincial government had requested the forum to allow the revision of cost for the soft opening of the project then scheduled for March last year.

However, KP government informed the apex court earlier in February that the project would be completed by the end of the July.

A National Accountability Bureau probe ordered by the Peshawar High Court into the alleged corruption in BRT project was stopped in Sept 2018 by a Supreme Court bench headed by the then chief justice, Saqib Nisar.

The court also stopped the Federal Investigation Agency from probing the project at the start of the current month.

A five-member FIA team formed in line with the high court’s judgement had submitted its report to the court at the end of last month.

Published in Dawn, March 12th, 2020