ISLAMABAD: On the direction of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif, the Capital Development Authority (CDA) has started working to interlink the Rawalpindi-Islamabad and the Peshawar Mor-airport metro bus services.

For this purpose, a bay is being constructed at Faiz Ahmed Faiz Station near the excise and taxation office and the Higher Education Commission (HEC) building.

A brief issued by the PM Office said that from Monday both the metro services will be merged. Once the two services are linked, passengers coming from Secretariat and Saddar could go to Peshawar Mor, Nust, Islamabad International Airport (IIA) side and vice versa.

Work on the bay on Faiz Ahmed Faiz Station is in progress and will be completed by Sunday to link the metro services as directed by the prime minister, said a CDA officer.

Construction of bay underway at the station which will be completed by Sunday, official says

Prime Minister Sharif on Monday inaugurated the Peshawar Mor to IIA Metro Bus Service, a project which saw a delay of four years for completion. The bus service is providing free ride to passengers in Ramazan.

An official of the CDA said on an average 8,000 passengers used the bus service daily.

He said 9,900 passengers used the service on Tuesday, adding in coming days when universities would be opened the service would see an increase in the number of passengers.

He said 11 buses were being operated from Peshawar Mor to the N5 (Chungi No 26) bus station while four buses were catering to passengers from the starting point to the airport.

The official said another bus service - Blue Line - between Rawat and Faizabad was also in the pipeline which could be started in a couple of months. He said a feasibility study would also be carried out to run metro buses between Bhara Kahu and Peshawar Mor.

Meanwhile, sources said the CDA on Tuesday also awarded a contract worth Rs980 million for the installation of Intelligence Transportation System (ITS) and Command and Control System for the Peshawar Mor to IIA metro service.

The project will be completed in four months. However, officials said the service was being managed through QR code tickets and other manual arrangements. They said another contract worth Rs2.5 billion had also been awarded for the operation and maintenance of the metro service for 10 years. But the contract will start once the ITS system is installed.

Work on the 25.6km metro bus track worth Rs16 billion was started by the PML-N government in 2017. It was supposed to be completed within a year. However, after the change of government in 2018, the project saw an inordinate delay.

The project was executed by the National Highway Authority (NHA) and last year on the direction of the then federal government the CDA took over the project and started the process of procuring buses and setting up the command, control and ticketing systems.

A few months ago, the CDA ordered an international company to manufacture 30 buses for the service in China. The buses were supposed to reach Islamabad last month for opening of the project on March 23.

But due to the Covid-19 cases in Shanghai, the buses could not be shipped to Pakistan and are now expected to arrive in Karachi on May 5. However, as a stop-gap arrangement, the CDA arranged 15 buses from the Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Service.

The neglected project caught the attention of the new prime minister on his first day in office when he directed the CDA to take steps to launch the service within five days.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2022