CM shelves Metro Train Project

After scrapping the Sasti Roti scheme, the Punjab government has shelved the metro train project called the Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System (LRMTS) in order to divert Rs 5.2 billion allocated for the project to the rehabilitation of the flood affectees, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The metro train was supposed to run through different areas of the city in order to minimise the load on public transport routes, reduce the dependency on road vehicles, facilitate safe and environmentally sustainable transport and provide high-level service in terms of speed, frequency and easy accessibility. This was the second project, which was dumped by the Punjab government after it scrapped the much-famed Sasti Roti scheme and diverted Rs 8 billion to the rehabilitation of the flood affectees. Planning and Development Department Chairman Javed Aslam told Pakistan Today that the flood devastation had changed the priorities set in the provincial budget 2010-11. Besides various other changes in the budgetary allocations, the LRMTS had been shelved and its funds were shifted to other projects. Aslam said that all other projects of the Punjab government would remain intact.
According to a LRMTS official, Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had issued orders for scrapping the project, which was designed to provide modern transport facilities to the public. The project would had provided fast transportation facilities to 0.6 million passengers per day. He said that the Punjab chief minister had ordered the closing of all special cells of the project and directed the LRMTS staff including Project Director Shahid Mehmood, Deputy Director Tayyab Fareed and Land Acquisition Director Jahanzaib Ali to report to their concerned departments. LRMTS Deputy Director Tayyab Fareed said that the project could be revived if the financial condition of the Punjab government improved in sometime. He said that the project was initiated after through research and feasibility reports were carried out. “The urban reliance on public transport system in Lahore is almost 60 percent. In Vietnam, where such reliance was only 20 percent, it rose rapidly with the introduction of the Rapid Mass Transit System. In India, the Rapid Mass Transit System started in Kolkata and Delhi. The Delhi Metro is now the second largest underground rapid transit system in India. Due to the introduction of the Rapid Mass Transit System, the Indian society has witnessed a rapid economic, social and cultural transformation,” he added.
He said that the government had sought assistance from the Asian Development Bank (ADB) to co-finance the LRMTS project, estimated to cost around $2.4 billion, including the systems and operations needed to be deployed through outsourcing transaction advisory services to structure a successful private-public partnership (PPP) through involvement of international investors and financial institutions. Fareed said that planning for the metro network had started in the 1990s when the priority corridor for a light rail transit system had been identified. Internationally reputed consultants were commissioned by the government in 2005 to undertake a feasibility study of a rapid mass transit system for Lahore. Spreading over 97 kilometres with 82 stations, a network of mass transit corridors consisting of four lines was identified in December 2005 with Ferozepur Road as top priority corridor or ‘green line’. Detailed feasibility of the green line had been finalised in August 2006 that had defined its main parameters.