Bus rapid transit for Peshawar wins green light

ADB to provide Rs50b soft loan for project

PESHAWAR: The Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) Provincial Working Development Party (PWDP) on Tuesday approved the revised Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project with a 54 per cent increase in the total cost to Rs57 billion as against December 2016’s estimation of Rs37 billion.

Improper mapping of the project by the two stakeholders – Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) Transport Department and Peshawar Development Authority – is said to be the reason behind the sudden cost overrun.

The project’s documents presented in the PWDP meeting, a copy of which is available with The Express Tribune, showed the cost of the project increased due to inclusion of Sunehri Masjid Alignment, institutional costs, resettlement costs, land requisition resettlement cost, utilities relocation, financing charges and fleet scraping charges.



A senior official of the K-P Transport Department told The Express Tribune that the cost increased owing to lack of proper preparation of the initial design of the BRT. The official said many ‘technical flaws’ were made in the design despite the fact that millions were given to the consultant for preparation of the design.

“Now after changes in the alignment, the government has again paid millions of rupees for the redesigned plan of the project,” the official added.

Some of the major components necessary in the BRT design such as plan for managing the existing traffic of the city during the project’s execution were also missing in the preliminary design.

According to the documents, the cost of infrastructure and establishment of depots increased by 62.5 per cent to Rs39 billion from Rs24 billion, while utility relocation cost has been increased by a whopping 740 per cent to Rs4.2 billion as compared with the previous Rs500 million in the newly approved design.

The project has been approved with new cost of Rs57.23 billion, in which Rs50 billion will be provided by the Asian Development Bank (ADB) as a soft loan and Rs7.23 billion by the K-P government.



According to details, BRT in Peshawar will be accessible to 17.54 per cent of the city’s total population or a total of over 500,000 individuals. According to the plan, the BRT routes will be extended beyond the corridor to provide ease to the population living in the urban localities of the city.

The proposed corridor of the BRT has been surrounded with high commuting activities making the system ideal for passengers. Commercial and business areas along the GT Road fall on the main road, whereas the highly populated residential areas will be served by the secondary roads.

The 26 kilometres BRT, of which 6.0 kilometres will be elevated having five kilometre tunnels. The system will have 32 stations, two depots and 150 bus stops with an addition of 450 buses to the BRT fleet.

Two types of buses –9.0 metres and 12 metres – will be used for Peshawar BRT. The 9.0-metre buses will be plying on smaller roads outside the corridor such as Kohat Road, Bara Road, and residential roads in Hayatabad.