KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday directed the transport department to complete the infrastructure of the Orange Line project, get the Asian Development Bank loan effective for Red Line and finalise the design of Yellow Line so that work on them could be started.

This he said while presiding over a meeting of the Sindh transport department to review the progress of the bus rapid transit (BRT) systems. The meeting was attended by Transport Minister Awais Qadir Shah and others.

The chief minister said that the BRT projects planned by the provincial government had started maturing and the transport department should set a timeline for their groundbreaking.

The meeting was told that the Orange Line, renamed as BRT Abdul Sattar Edhi, was a 3.88-km-long project having four bus stations and one bus terminal. It had been launched by the provincial government from its own resources with an estimated cost of Rs2.36 billion.

Its route starts from TMA Office Orangi Town to Jinnah University for Women Nazimabad, Karachi. Nespak is the design and supervision consultant of the project.

The transport minister told the chief minister that infrastructure of the BRT had almost been completed but was delayed due to under-consturction Green Line because the BRT had to integrate with it.

The chief minister directed him to complete the remaining work and report to him.

The CM was told that Red Line had three packages, including engineering, procurement and construction management (EPCM) and operation design. The other one was project management, coordination and capacity building (PMCCB) and under this package the capacity building of the Sindh Mass Transit Authority and TransKarachi BRT Company was in progress.

The transport minister said all consultants and TransKarachi would be supporting the provincial government in selecting contractors for civil works and suppliers for all project equipment such as vehicles, intelligent transport systems and fare systems.

It may be noted that the Red Line project cost is Rs74.679bn.

The meeting was informed that the World Bank on the request of the chief minister agreed to undertake Yellow Line project with the objective of improving urban mobility, accessibility and road safety in Karachi, through construction of the 22-km-long Yellow Line corridor, drainage, lighting, bus ways, stations, terminals and depot.

Published in Dawn, September 30th, 2020