ISLAMABAD: The Capital Development Authority (CDA) will form a Grievance Redressal Committee (GRC) to decide the fate of bids that it recently received for hiring 150 buses from a contractor to ply on 13 new routes in the capital.

Talking to Dawn, CDA officials said recently the civic agency got bids from two private companies for hiring 150 buses.

They said one company submitted a bid to set the fare at Rs321 per kilometre and the second one deposited a bid to set the fare at Rs366 per kilometre.

However, the official said, the highest bidder challenged the bid of the other company on technical grounds. To settle this, officials said the CDA decided to form a GRC to look into the objections raised by the highest bidder against the lowest bidder.

Official says objections raised by highest bidder to be looked into

“The Grievance Redressal Committee will decide the matter and then we will issue final orders to hire 150 buses,” said an officer of the civic body.

He said the CDA would hire the service of the successful bidder for getting 150 buses, which would be plied on 13 routes of Islamabad.

The officer said as per the agreement, the civic body will pay the bus operating company against per kilometre and after eight years, the buses will become assets of the CDA.

It is relevant to note here that the CDA on the directives of Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif had decided to launch a new bus service on 13 routes.

Earlier, the prime minister had inaugurated three metro bus services – Orange Line, Green Line and Blue Line. The buses that are plying on the three routes belong to the CDA.

However, under the new arrangement for plying buses on 13 routes, the CDA had decided, instead to procure buses and hire services of a private bus company, which will be paid against each kilometre of travel.

According to a study, the 13 routes are the one from Police Foundation/Orange Line Station to Red Line Faiz Ahmed Faiz Station I-8, Allama Iqbal Station to Red Line Potohar Station, Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) to Secretariat, D-12 to G-10, F-11 to Red Line F-8 station, G-11 to Pims, Aabpara to Tramri Chowk, Nilor to Khanna Pul, Pirwadhai Chowk to Faizabad, B-17 to 26 Number Chungi and I-16 to 26 Number.

Sources said that once the matter is decided by GRE, the CDA will sign an agreement with the successful company to get 150 buses.

They said that buses will be provided in two phases and in the first phase, a fleet of 75 buses will be seen moving on various roads of Islamabad.

Sources said that though CDA wanted to get the buses as soon as possible, however, they said that after placing orders, the project could take three to four months, as procurement of buses is not an easy task for any bus operating company.

They said that procuring buses from the international market and then importing them to Pakistan will be a time consuming process.

An officer said that once the CDA gets the service of 150 buses, almost all areas of the city will be interconnected with each other.

Published in Dawn, December 5th, 2022