Orange Line project misses another deadline

Centre refuses to run imported buses until Sindh finishes required work on corridor

KARACHI:

The Orange Line bus project being constructed under the Sindh administration appears to have been met with another set of delays.

Last month, the provincial transport minister Sharjeel Memon had set a May 30 deadline for the completion of the project.

However, well into the month of June, the construction work for the mass transit project is still to be completed while the 20 Chinese buses imported for the purpose are yet to grace the roads.

Per the project plan, the Sindh government will not be responsible for running these buses on the Orange Line corridor, leaving it to be the responsibility of the federal government.

For this, the buses have already been transferred to the centre, but the federal government has made it clear that it will not begin running the buses until the provincial government finishes its task of completing the corridor.

According to a survey by the Express Tribune, so far, the government has remained unable to complete the work for installing accelerators and lifts in the Orange Line bus project, while the installation of PSD doors also appears unaccomplished.

Experts say that the installation of small parts in electrical and mechanical works is a very difficult task and if there is continuous work, the project will be completed in June, otherwise, there may be further delays.

Engineers at the Orange Line site putting things into perspective informed the Express Tribune that the Orange Line corridor has a total of 11 elevators, out of which development work has been completed for nine of them.

There are 10 accelerators, of which 9 accelerators have been installed while work on one is still in progress.

There are 28 automatic doors, out of which only 2 doors have been installed and the remaining 26 doors will be installed this week.

The project engineers speaking on conditions of anonymity claimed that all developmental work is slated for completion by June 15.

“Buses will run on the corridor for 10 to 15 days as a trial, while the bus service will be launched for citizens in July,” said an engineer present on site.

It should be noted that the Orange Line bus project was incepted in 2016 and was meant to be a 3.9 kilometre track running from Orangi Town Office to Matric Board Office Chowrangi.

Back then, it was announced that the project will come to completion by the year 2017, but the inadequacies of the provincial government and its disregard for the mass transit scheme have already delayed the project by over five years and counting.

The Sindh Infrastructure Development Company Limited (SIDCL), a federal government agency, was tasked with running buses on the corridor.

It is the same federal government agency that completed a phase of the Green Line Bus project and is currently running the buses in Karachi.

However, the federal government has made it clear to the Sindh government that it has no plans of running the buses until everything in the Orange Line bus project is completed.

That being said, the centre had still arranged for the purchase of Orange Line buses, for which the provincial government provided the funds.

The buses are currently parked at the federal government’s Surjani bus depot, while drivers for the fleet are in the process of being trained.

According to a federal government official, in the first phase, these buses will run from Orangi Town Office to Matric Board Office Chowrangi.

In the second phase, they will be run up to Nagan Chowrangi and after about a year, these buses will be connected to the Green Line BRT, allowing commuters to be able to travel from Orangi Town to Numaish Chowrangi on a single ticket.

“Although the fare for the first phase has not been finalised yet, it is expected that the fare will be Rs15,” the officer asserted.

When the Express Tribune contacted Orange Line project director Yazim Ali Shah to confirm the news of delay, he said he was not officially authorised to comment on the matter, and advised directing correspondence to Public Relations Officer Ambreen Fatima.

When probed regarding the matter, Ms Fatima further said that she would direct correspondence to the Provincial Transport Minister’s personal assistant, who per her should be able to comment on the case.

However, so far, no contact has been established with the transport minister’s personal secretary, and no word has been obtained on the new official date for the much-touted Orange Line project’s completion.