Minister gives one month target to start Orange Line bus service

Sindh Minister for Information, Transport and Mass Transit Sharjeel Inam Memon has given a one-month target to Sindh Mass Transit Authority to operationalise Orange Line Bus Rapid Transport Service.

Sharjeel Memon chaired a meeting on Friday in which Secretary Transport Sindh Abdul Haleem Sheikh, MD Sindh Mass Transit Authority Altaf Saryo and other officials of authority participated. The minister sought all the issues and hindrances in the Orange Line project.

He directed Secretary Transport Sindh to hold meeting with Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Limited (SIDCL) to expedite the pace work on Orange. He added that he would personally talk to Federal Minister for Planning Ahsan Iqbal so that the project could be operationalised.

He said that the Orange Line should be made operational in a month to facilitate safe and comfortable travelling to the citizens of Orangi Town and adjoining areas. During the meeting, the provincial minister was given a detailed briefing on the mandate of Sindh Mass Transit Authority and mass transit projects .

Giving a detailed briefing on Karachi Circular Railway, Blue Line, Brown Line , and other BRTs of the city, it was informed that BRT Green Line Phase I is operational from Surjani Town up to Numaish roundabout, while BRT Yellow, Orange and Red Lines are in implementation phase.

The Green Line is a project of the federal government and will be handed over to the Sindh government in three years.

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It was further informed in the briefing that 98% civil work of Orange Line project from Orangi Town to Board Office has been completed .it is completely Sindh government funded project being executed under SIDCL, a federal government company. It was also informed that Sindh government has made payments to SIDCL for the procurement of 20 buses for Orange Line.

The project was first started in 2016 under the supervision of the Sindh Mass Transit Authority (SMTA), and was supposed to be completed within a year.

Eight years on and several ultimatums later, parts of the 3.9 kilometre project are still left hanging in mid-air, including electrical work on four of its stations and the installation of elevators and escalators.

The Orange Line BRT recently renamed as Abdul Sattar Edhi Line will have five bus stations with expected daily ridership of 50,000. Line goes from Board Office to Gulshan-e-Zia, Orangi Town.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2022.