Owing to the ongoing energy crisis, particularly that of the compressed natural gas, it seems the long-pending multibillion rupee Benazir Bhutto Transport Programme of 1,000 environment-friendly CNG buses will not materialise in the tenure of this government. In year 2006-07, the federal government had announced this important project at a cost of Rs 2.5 billion that increased manifold. However, it was delayed following lack of interest on the part of the Sindh government.
Under the said project, some 500 CNG buses were to be introduced in Karachi by February 2008 while at least 1,000 buses were to be introduced in the entire province. Among them, 600 buses were to ply on different intercity routes of the metropolitan, 100 on the Karachi-Sukkur route, 100 on Karachi-Hyderabad, and 50 each on the Karachi-Larkana, Khairpur-Benazirabad and Mirpurkhas routes, sources told Pakistan Today.
Sources said following the attitude of the authorities and the political hustle-bustle, the financier of the project, the Asian Development Bank, pulled out. Besides, the Centre also refused to provide the promised subsidy of Rs 700,000 per vehicle, citing “financial crunch” as the reason. They said the Sindh Transport Department had forwarded two requests to the Centre to provide funding for the project. However, the federal authorities showed reluctance, citing “financial crisis” as the reason because the project would cost Rs 5 billion, they added.
The sources said had the transport programme materialised timely, thousands of skilled and unskilled youths would have been employed. The Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) had also recently completed all groundwork to initiate the long-delayed, multi-billion project but the PPP-led government seemed reluctant to provide the promised funds in the midst of the ongoing financial crunch as well as the recent energy crisis. They said KMC Administrator Muhammad Hussain Syed recently wrote to the Environment Ministry director general, apprising him that the project was ready to kick off.
The letter stated: “As you are aware that the World Bank had appointed Winrock International as a consultant in 2010 to train personnel and develop Project Idea Note (PIN) and Project Design Documents (PDDs) for streamlining the carbon trade funding under the Clean Development Mechanism (CDM) for emission-reduction programme of the UNO. Accordingly, the consultants, in association with the KMTC, CDGK, had developed a PIN and the same was submitted to the CDM Cell in December 2010. Subsequently, the Cell was pleased to issue the Letter of Intent in January 2011 and advised to submit PDDs, so that the subject project activity for starting the process of getting approval from the host country in accordance with national development aims and objectives may be initiated. You are, therefore, requested to please use your good offices to pursue the consultants to develop PDDs at the earliest, so that further processing for credit financing under the standing Emission Control Programme be initiated in time as the CNG bus project is ready to kick off.”
Furthermore, the sources said the federal government had informed the Sindh government that the project could not be started because of a shortage of funds and the worst energy crisis in the country. The government is instead mulling over removing CNG cylinders installed in the buses and vans to avoid further crisis, they added.
The government opts for pollution
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