ISLAMABAD: Test-run of the coveted metro bus has started but unfortunately the buses could not venture very far into Islamabad on Wednesday.

A short distance from their depot, the buses found a section of their route in Islamabad blocked, not because of unfinished work but by a flooded underpass at Peshawar Mor. Though it rained a total of 63mm at the start of the week, it was enough to submerge the underpass under almost 20 feet of water.

So the shiny 68 buses imported from Turkey to run the service have to stay away from this section until the water drains out – that too naturally because neither the contractor, nor the consultant Nespak, nor the Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) realised that connecting the drainage system is essential in Islamabad.

In fact, during the construction of the underpass, a RDA official had assured Dawn that no water will accumulate on the bus track as “the drainage system has been laid some four feet below the ground at the point”.

Now that it has, commuters can forget the launch of the bus service in Islamabad on the speculated date of March 23.

This 4.4km long section of Package-I of MBP runs from Faizabad up to Peshawar Mor and all the four stations of the package area near completion.

“Of all the MBP sections in Islamabad, it was the only one where the test-run could take place,” said the RDA official.

Five different contracts were awarded for the Islamabad part of the MBP. Package-II covers the interchange at Peshawar Mor and there not even the 1.1 kilometre track has been completed.

Luckily, work progress is better in Package-III which covers 2.9 kilometre of track from Peshawar Mor to Centaurus.

Package-IV takes over there up to Shaheed-e-Millat Secretariat and the last package takes the metro bus to Pak-Secretariat. But work on these sections is far from finish.

Published in Dawn March 5th , 2015

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