RAWALPINDI: The authorities have completed the rehabilitation of the bus corridor outside two metro stations as a part of a project to rehabilitate the elevated track by the end of December.

The Rawalpindi Development Authority (RDA) divided the corridor into 20 sites – two each for a bus station – under the ‘Rehabilitation of Metro Corridor from Saddar to Faizabad’ project costing Rs718.945 million.

An RDA official said the work would be completed by December, adding that both sides of the Shamsabad and Rehmanabad bus stations have been completed. Similarly, one side of the Waris Khan and Liaquat Bagh stations had also been completed.

According to the official, the renovation of the metro corridor and the platforms was a complicated process. He said during the day buses ran on a single track while the workers carried out renovation works on the other track. After completing all 20 sites, the road will be re-carpeted from Saddar to Faizabad.

Track outside two stations fixed, eight more to go; feeder buses for Pindi to arrive in November

The official appeared confident that work would end by December, saying the contractor had been given six months to complete the task.

“Mostly the work is done at night, from 11pm till morning however,” he said.

The RDA official said there was dire need to repair the track and platforms on the metro bus stations. However, he said that the repair work was limited to the metro track and there was no plan for the renovation of bus stations in this project.

“For the safety of buses and passengers, security guards are deployed on the track to manage the buses on one lane which is opened to traffic,” he said.

He said that all measures had been adopted to make the journey of passengers comfortable during the construction work and it did not reduce the number of passengers. However, he said that the speed of buses did reduce due to the ongoing works.

It may be mentioned here that the project completed in 2014 and the federal and Punjab governments almost equally shared the Rs44.8 billion the project cost. Of it the Rawalpindi section cost Rs19.17 billion and the Islamabad section Rs23.84 billion.

The total length of the metro corridor is approximately 23km, including 8.6km elevated, 10km at grade, and four kilometre trench.

The portion of Metro Bus Service in Rawalpindi from Flashman’s Hotel to Faizabad having distance of 8.6km is elevated, while in Islamabad 14.6km is on ground, starting from Faizabad to Pak Secretariat via I.J.P Road and 9th Avenue. The track has 24 modern stations for the passengers. Of these 10 are on Murree Road while 14 are in Islamabad. Sixty-eight air conditioned buses for the service are being operated and transport an estimated 150,000 passengers daily.

On the other hand, Punjab government will launch 102 buses in the garrison city on 10 routes to connect different parts of the city with its nearest metro bus station.

“The feeder buses will connect all parts of the city with existing metro bus route. The 10 routes of the buses designed so people from Peshawar Road, Adiala Road and other areas will catch the buses to Islamabad without any problem,” said Regional Transport Authority Secretary Rashid Ali.

He said that the process of the buses arrival in Rawalpindi would likely to complete by November.

Published in Dawn, September 16th, 2024