KARACHI: Sindh Minister for Information, Transport and Mass Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon has said that due to current economic situation, the Sindh government has reduced it’s expenditures and made cuts on development projects but no cuts have been made in public transport projects.
The minister pledged to complete all the projects on priority basis. He added that peoples bus service and EV Bus would be started on all major routes of Karachi. The minister said this while talking to media after inspection of BRT Red Line Corridor on Saturday.
The minister said that the chief minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah had given him full support to complete the public transport projects. The minister added that he visited today BRT Red Line project with project consultants and contractors to inspect the pace of work.
He said that due to historic inflation in the country, the cost of project has increased and contractors were facing difficulties to maintain the pace of work. When they started work on the project the iron cost them Rs 140000 per ton which is increased to Rs 310000 per ton.
The minister said that they held detail discussion with the contractors and assured them that there genuine issues would be resolved and also talked with Asian Development Bank on the matter. On the assurance from Sindh government, the contractors have paced up the speed on the project two days ago.
The minister said that after the assurance to contractors, Sindh government would not accept any compromise on the speed of project as citizens of Karachi were facing severe problems . He admitted as minister that citizens of Karachi who use university road were facing troubles and apologized with the people of Karachi for the difficulties. He added that once the project completed it will benefit the people.
He said that government is well aware of situation and it’s machinery is on the field to complete the project as soon as possible.
He said that peoples bus service, Pink Bus Service and EV Bus has received tremendous response from the citizens. More routes would be functionaze within a week or fortnight. Responding to question , he said that fare of people’s bus service are under review and added that due to inflation in the country and increase in diesel prices people’s bus service could not be operated on current fare structure.
He said that Sindh government has no option but to increase the fares. He said that the fare of people’s bus service would not be increased at once but in phases keeping in view the difficulties of common people.
Earlier minister visited the under construction Corridor of BRT Red Line along with consultants, contractors. Secretary Transport Abdul Haleem Shaikh, GM Construction Trans Karachi Pir Sajjad Sarhandi briefed the minister on lot one and lot two of the corridor.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023
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