PESHAWAR: The Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government on Monday decided to execute the much-delayed Peshawar Safe City Project in a phased manner at the cost of Rs19 billion.

The decision was made during a meeting chaired by Chief Minister Mahmood Khan and attended by finance minister Taimur Saleem Jhagra, Inspector General of Police Moazzam Jah Ansari, home secretary Khushal Khan and other relevant senior officials here, according to an official statement issued.

The meeting decided that the initiative would be executed first in Hayatabad area as a pilot project at the cost of Rs500 million and would be extended to other parts of the city afterwards.

It also declared that the plan for the implementation of the pilot project would be finalised within a week; the hiring of a consultant firm for it would be completed in a month, and the pilot project would be successfully executed by the end of this year.

Hayatabad pilot project to be completed by year’s end

The meeting decided that the project would be implemented through an open tendering.

The relevant officials told participants that the preliminary survey of the Hayatabad pilot project had been completed for execution, while 500 CCTV cameras would be installed at 96 points of the posh township. Also, 56 kilometres of fiber optic cable will be laid to integrate those cameras.

The chief minister directed the relevant officials to float an advertisement without delay for the pilot project’s consultancy.

He said the Safe City Project was imperative for the protection of the lives of the residents.

Mr Mahmood said that the provincial government would provide all the requiredresources for this purpose. The chair also directed the concerned quarters to fulfill their respective shares of responsibilities well in time in orderensure the implementation of the project without further delay. He also directed the concerned authorities to strictly adhere to the prevailing rules and regulations andensuretransparency in all respects while executing the project.

The official documents available with Dawn show that the project, which was conceived in 2009 along with the Islamabad Safe City Project, could not be executed for various reasons. The home department, which was tasked with carrying out the project’s planning, had handed it over to the police department in 2017.

The documents stated that the project steering committee, headed by the Additional Chief Secretary KP on February 20, 2020 decided that the police department may adopt open tendering for consultancy service for the project.

The PSC also called for carrying out cost and benefit analysis of similar projects in Islamabad and Lahore. It also directed for carrying out a feasibility study to explore and design financial/business and operational models for long term viability and sustainability of the project.

On Dec 30, 2020, the chief minister directed the relevant authorities to engage the National Radio and Telecommunication Services for the project.

However, later the provincial home department after evaluating the capacity of the NRTC determined that the entity had not carried out any safe city project and therefore, the provincial government should go for open international bidding for the purpose.

The documents said that the Hayatabad has been selected for pilot project as it was sensitive area because of its geographic location close to the border of Khyber tribal district, incidents of crimes and targeted killings and seat of key public offices.

The Hayatabad portion of the Peshawar Safe City Project will be ‘open to integration’ with the rest of city and will cost around Rs500 million.

The documents show that 15 sites have been identified in Hayatabad Phase I, 13 in Phase II, 19 in Phase III, 10 each in phases IV and VII, 12 in Phase V, 11 in Phase VI and six on Jamrud Road for the installation of security cameras. The cameras will include fixed, pan, tilt and zoom and automatic number plate recognition ones.

Published in Dawn, April 26th, 2022