LAHORE: The people of the provincial capital will soon enjoy economical, honourable and cheap transport facilities after the completion of the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT), as the work on the new generation train project continues with speed, senior government officials said on Thursday.
In an attempt to make up for the loss of time caused due to the stay order that the Lahore High Court (LHC) had on the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project for 14 months, the construction work is being continued at an expedited speed.
According to reports, the metro train currently under construction in Lahore once operational will be comparable to the finest across the world including Moscow’s Kaluzhsko-Rizhskaya.
The city authorities modestly call the project the best metro train in the world with several advanced features.
“Work on the Orange Line Metro Train continues apace to make up for the loss of precious time due to stay order taken by the political opponents,” the official said.
The chief minister is regularly monitoring the progress of the project, as the Supreme Court directions with regard to the project will be fully abided by with a special fund for the protection of historical buildings. The officials said that the government has always given priority to the agenda of public service and national development in its tenure and wonderful records have been set in these fields.
Punjab chief minister had earlier directed the concerned authorities to ‘burn the midnight oil’ for the earliest completion of the project and the speed of work may further be accelerated on allied works attached to it. The directives by the chief minister had come following the Supreme Court’s ruling in favour of the provincial government eight months later and conditional permission to the government to carry on the construction work of the OLMT project through 11 historical sites of the city.
The court had also directed the provincial government to commission a Rs100 million fund for the protection and safekeeping of the sites that include Shalimar Gardens, Gulabi Bagh Gateway, Chauburji, Zebunnisa’s Tomb, Lakshmi Building and the General Post Office.
It may be noted that the project, which was included in the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) in 2017, is expected to run on electricity and transport up to 250,000 passengers a day.
