Metro Bus subsidy sharing: CDA reluctant to sign accord

The civic agency has sent the agreement to CADD for reviewing

ISLAMABAD:

Despite agreeing on a controversial subsidy-sharing formula between the federal and the Punjab governments for the Metro Bus Service, the federal bureaucracy seems hesitant to sign an agreement.

According to the formula, the federal government will foot Rs1.52 billion out of the total Rs2.5 billion subsidy and the Punjab government will bear slightly less than Rs1 billion. While the share of the Centre in the revenue is lesser than the provincial government.

Following almost 10-month deliberation over the issue, the Punjab and the federal finance ministers last month directed the Capital Development Authority (CDA) to sign the agreement.

The Punjab Metro Bus Authority (PMBA) after the decision sent the copy of the agreement to CDA, which had already refused to sign it.

Expressing their concern over the agreement which could land them in trouble, CDA has now sent the document to the Capital Administration and Development Division (CADD), the controlling body of the civic agency to review it.

“No federal government department is ready to take the responsibility by signing the controversial formula,” said a senior CADD official who declined to be named.

Both CDA and CADD are passing the buck to each other, the official maintained.

The official said it was the responsibility of CDA chairman or the authority’s board to approve and then send it to CADD. “But, contrary to it, CDA directly sent it [the agreement] to CADD without citing any financial implications of the deal,” he said adding that the civic agency chairman wanted to shift his responsibility.

The federal and provincial finance ministers have agreed that the federal government will foot a larger portion of the subsidy bill as the contribution is calculated on track length rather ridership which is more in Rawalpindi than Islamabad.



The Rs44 billion spent on the project was shared equally by both the governments, but a Rs5 billion interchange at Peshawar Mor in Islamabad was financed by the federal government as it was curiously excluded from the original agreement.

The total track length is 8.6 kilometres in Rawalpindi and 13.9 kilometres in Islamabad.

An official ridership report for the first three months shows that an average of 100,558 passengers used the service every day, with an average ridership in Rawalpindi at 58,559, and 41,999 in Islamabad.

Revenues earned through ticket sales are split on the basis of ridership, leaving Punjab with around 59 per cent of the revenue to reflect the same percentage share it has of riders.

A few days ago PMBA Operations General Manager Muhammad Ozair Shah confirmed to The Express Tribune that a modified agreement incorporating the recently-agreed subsidy sharing formula had been sent to CDA for approval on behalf of the federal government.

When contacted, the CDA spokesperson said there existed no such dispute over the issue and that currently CDA was deliberating upon the matter, which according to him, would be resolved soon.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 2^nd, 2016.