Orange line: Flagship mass-transit project inching ahead

Prototype successfully fabricated, HCS CEO says .

LAHORE: A concrete u-tub for the Orange Line Metro Train (OLMT) project has been successfully fabricated, Habib Construction Services (HCS) CEO Shahid Saleem told The Express Tribune on Wednesday.

Saleem, the CEO of the OLMT Package-I contractor, said the project’s Chinese contractors had approved the structure following load tests. “Chinese contractors have approved the design, quality and strength of the u-tub. Now the company is set to start mass production of the structures. We are waiting for some steel parts to arrive. They are in transit as of now. Mass production will commence next week following their receipt,” the HCS CEO said.

Saleem said over a third of work had been completed on the OLMT project.

He said the company had already finished 60 per cent of one ground barrel’s civil works. Saleem said though the company had finished piling along the remaining two barrels, work had to be halted on this account in accordance with court directives.

He said the company had been coating roads with asphalt and was opening them for vehicular traffic along places where the ground civil works of the project had been completed.

OLMT Steering Committee Chairman Khwaja Ahmad Hassaan told The Express Tribune that the government had asked project contractors to formulate comprehensive plans to prevent water from collecting in ditches situated along the route of the metro train.

He said the Water and Sanitation Agency (WASA) would offer them technical and operational assistance in this regard. He said private contractors would be entrusted with ensuring that the monsoon operation was successfully executed.

While litigation had turned out to be a protracted affair, Hassaan said he remained hopeful of seeing the project’s on-time completion. This, he said, would be a formidable challenge nevertheless. He said some positive news might follow in the wake of the June 23 hearing of several petitions related to the project.

The 27-kilometre project, estimated to cost $1.65 billion, is being financed largely by a Chinese soft loan. The project is part of a greater metro network slated to connect Raiwind Road, Multan Road, McLeod Road, City Railway Station and the Grand Trunk Road once complete.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 16^th, 2016.