Offer for bus terminal being examined

Published June 23, 2003

LAHORE, June 22: The City District Government is examining an offer for the development on build-operate-transfer basis of a modern inter-city bus terminal near motorway on Multan Road with facilities for arrival and departure of 3,000 buses daily.

District Nazim Mian Amer Mahmood disclosed this while presiding over a meeting held here on Sunday to review the public transport facilities available in the city district.

He said that the bus terminal was proposed to be built at the site of the Thokar Niazbeg depot of the defunct Punjab Road Transport Corporation at an estimated cost of Rs300 million.

He said that the CDG also proposed to build small bus stands on Ferozepur Road and Bund Road with facilities for arrival and departure of 1,400 buses daily.

The transporters would be free to use the bus stands of their choice. The CDG would build the approach roads to the proposed bus stands and issue route permits for plying of public transport for reaching there.

He said that the CDG had also approached the federal government for the upgradation of the Shahdara, Kot Lakhpat and Lahore Cantonment railway stations and stoppages of all the trains there for reducing pressure on the Lahore Railway Station.

The CDG would improve the approach roads to the railway stations.

He said that rules were being formulated to form a cooperative society for managing the Badami Bagh General Bus Stand. The society would comprise representatives of the transporters, traders, workshop owners and people using the bus stand.

He said that the general bus stand had become overcrowded. It had been built on a 33 kanal piece of land in 1963 for operation of 1,600 buses daily but now 4,000 buses were being operated from it daily. Over 100,000 passengers were using the bus stand daily.

Hundreds of shops and workshops built in and around the bus stand were causing serious problems in the maintenance of the bus stand. The CDG was ready to provide fully developed alternative space to the owners of workshops in case they agreed to shift there.

TUBEWELL: The District Nazim inaugurated a newly-installed four cusec tubewell at the Union Council No 54, Mustafabad.

The Water and Sanitation Agency of the Lahore Development Authority has installed the tubewell at a cost of Rs2.9 million.

More than 50,000 people will benefit because of the installation of the new tubewell.