Sindh shelves eco-friendly bus project

As the country is going through worst energy crisis, the Sindh government has decided to bring at least 500 diesel engine wide buses instead of 1,000 environment-friendly CNG buses for the metropolis, Pakistan Today has learnt.
The said plan has been changed as the CNG buses would face shortage of fuel (CNG) if they are brought on the city’s major roads putting extra burden on the national exchequer besides expected failure of the important project.
Sources told Pakistan Today that the long pending multibillion Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Transport Programme (1,000 environment friendly CNG buses) was unlikely to be materialized in the present government’s tenure.
In the year 2006-07, the federal government had announced this project at a cost of Rs 2.5 billion, 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, the sources added.
The sources said following the pathetic attitude of Sindh’s authorities and the political hustle-bustle, the financier of the project, the Asian Development Bank, pulled out of the project
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 materialized timely, thousands of skilled and unskilled youths would have been provided employment.
In this regard, the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC) has also completed recently all the groundwork to initiate the long-delayed, multibillion-rupee Shaheed Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto Transport Programme (1,000 environment-friendly CNG buses), but the Pakistan People’s Party-led federal government seems reluctant to provide the promised funds in the midst of the ongoing financial crunch as well as the recent energy crisis particularly the CNG crisis.
They said KMC Administrator Muhammad Hussain Syed recently wrote to the environment ministry director general apprising him that the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto CNG Bus 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 funds’ shortage and the worst energy crisis in the country, particularly in providing smooth 1,000 CNG buses.
The government is instead mulling to remove CNG cylinders installed in the buses and vans so as to avoid further gas crisis in the future, they added.
It is pertinent to mention here that President Asif Ali Zardari, during his visit to Karachi, had approved three mega projects including the CNG bus project for Karachi which would be launched and overseen by the city government.
But interestingly, the Sindh transport department has changed the plan of bringing CNG buses with the diesel engine and in this regard a project implementation unit has also been set up. These diesel buses would soon ply on the roads of the city.