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Business Recorder

PDP criticises slow pace of work at Red Line BRT

KARACHI: Snail-paced work on Red Line BRT project is tormenting commuters as traffic jams on Main University Road have now become a daily life feature for hundreds of thousands of citizens, commuters and drivers using this busy artery, said Pasban Democratic Party (PDP) Chairman Altaf Shakoor here Sunday. He said that the project is being built with a foreign loan from the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank and its original completion date was December 31, 2025. Now they say that this project is likely to be completed by December 2026 but the slow pace of work shows that it would likely drag a few more years. He said our government is in the habit of delaying uplift projects to increase their costs, as the increased costs also result in increased commissions and kickbacks. He said the public transport sector in Karachi is in shambles, adding while Lahore is going to become a world class megacity in terms of modern commuting system; Karachi is still a backward city in this regard. He said both road and rail based public transport systems in Karachi are either neglected or marred with corruption and red tape. Altaf Shakoor said that for modern urban living, developing urban transport systems is a must. He said though Karachi well deserves an underground rail network but even its decades old surface rail system, Karachi Circular Railway (KCR), is non functional. He said the public transport sector in Karachi is placed at the bottom of the priority list of the Sindh government and the provincial transport department only issues colourful statements instead of focusing on solid progress. He requested the Sindh chief minister to pay a personal visit to the Red Line BRT and issue necessary orders to accelerate the work. He said the Green Line BRT is now handed over to the Sindh government but its extension to Tower is still a distant dream. He demanded starting work on the much delayed second phase of Green Line BRT and preferably extending it to Keamari. He said interlinking Green and Red Line BRT systems is also a must to facilitate commuters. Altaf Shakoor said that nearly 200 CNG buses imported by Mayor Niamatullah Khan and Mayor Mustafa Kamal are now parked in a junkyard. They are being rusted and their engines and other parts are being stolen. He demanded that these buses should be repaired and plied on roads. Copyright Business Recorder, 2025