Officials from various departments who were working on the Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) now face an uphill task of completing the remaining 10 percent work till February 10, Pakistan Today learnt on Thursday. Sources privy to the development revealed that the chief minister had announced the inauguration date of February 10 after he saw a detailed presentation on the 27km-long transit route in which the concerned authorities revealed that the project was 90 percent complete.
The government had initially announced the inauguration on January 27, but the date was later changed.
Sources told Pakistan Today that the new bridge on Ravi for the BRTS had been delayed till the next fiscal year.
However, in absence of a planned bridge, officials had now proposed an 18-meter-long articulated bus which is expected to pass through the existing Ravi Bridge, along the divider starting from Bhaati Chowk to Shahdara Station, which was the last stop of the BRTS. Moreover, Nespak officials proposed an underpass for the ambulances on their way to Lahore General Hospital, now that the Lahore High Court had allowed a path for the hospital. However, Nespak’s proposal was discarded as priority was given to the Model Town underpass.
TEPA Chief Engineer Akhtar Saeed denied any such proposal from the Nespak and said, “The government told the LHC that the situation for ambulances will automatically improve once the project is complete. I am not sure whether Nespak came up with any such design”. Besides these two important components, 29 bus stops with two escalators on each side and several overhead bridges also needed to be constructed. Moreover, e-ticking equipment needed to be installed and bus stops needed to be painted.
“We have worked day and night and are still giving our best in order to complete the project on time. It is definitely an uphill task for the entire team. There is so much dust and pollution along the entire route that the bus stops needed to be painted several times. The remaining 10 percent work is minute compared to the rest of the project which involved building concrete structures,” an official on one of the sites told Pakistan Today.
A senior planner working on the project explained that when a project is required to be completed in one-third of the stipulated time, the workers face “crashing”. “This always results into clash of activities. If someone is digging with the help of a crane, no new work can start. These clashes have to be removed in order to achieve normal progression of the project. In many cases, three contractors were ready to work, but the spot was not available as the clashes had not been removed before starting the project,” the official said.
However, TEPA Chief Engineer Akhtar Saeed said the entire work would be completed on time and the bus would be operational from Gajumata stop to Shahdara.
