ISLAMABAD: Minister for Parliamentary Affairs Murtaza Javed Abbasi on Thursday assured the National Assembly that faulty escalators at the bus stations of Rawalpindi-Islamabad Metro Bus Service would be made functional soon.

He was responding on behalf of the minister for interior to a calling attention notice moved by Nuzhat Pathan, Asiya Azeem and Wajiha Qamar regarding problems being faced by passengers of the metro bus service due to the non-functional escalators and other faults.

He said that all equipment needed in installation of escalators had been made available through import.

“The escalators will be functional within a few days,” he added.

He said that the State Bank of Pakistan had stopped issuing letters of credit (LCs) due to which equipment for repair of the escalators could not be imported.

“However, after getting permission to open LCs by State Bank of Pakistan, we imported the necessary equipment and work to repair machinery would be started as soon as possible.”

He said the Metro Bus Service administration had been asked to speed up the work so people would get the benefit from this facility.

In a supplementary question, Nuzhat Pathan pointed out that the passengers had to purchase separate tickets if they travel from Rawalpindi to Islamabad and back. She suggested that a daytime two-way ticket should be issued to passengers on which they could travel from Rawalpindi to Islamabad and back and vise versa.The minister said the government would consider formulating a new mechanism on the suggestion.The minister said the metro service was charging only Rs30 from Rawalpindi to Islamabad per passenger which was much less compared to the fare being charged by public transporters.

He said the government was providing a sufficient amount as a subsidy on each ticket for the facilitation of the metro bus passengers.

It may be mentioned that Metro Bus Service is operated between Saddar Rawalpindi and Secretariat in Islamabad which covers a distance of 24.4 km.

Published in Dawn, April 7th, 2023