Green Line of Karachi to start from Dec 25: Asad
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KARACHI: Federal Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Sunday announced through a tweet that the Karachi Green Line project will be ready for a trial run in the next 10 days.
The minister took to his official Twitter handle to state that the project was reviewed in “detail” on Saturday.
“After the trial run Prime Minister Imran Khan will come to Karachi and inaugurate the project,” Umar wrote. Furthermore, after a trial of “about two weeks” the commercial operation will launch on December 25, he maintained.
“I conducted a detailed reviewed the Karachi Green Line project yesterday (Saturday). With the grace of Allah, this project will be ready for trial operation in the next 10 days,” he said in a tweet.
Earlier this year the first consignment of 40 Green Line Bus Rapid Transit System (BRT) —the port city’s first mass transit system — buses arrived from China.
The work on the Rs 24 billion federal-funded project — conceived by the previous Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) government — had started in February 2016 and was scheduled to finish before the general election in July 2018.
The incumbent PTI government too has given several deadlines but has yet to perform the ribbon-cutting on the project.
In August, Umar had said that the Green Line service in Karachi will become operational by October this year.
Work on the Rs16.85 billion federal government-funded bus project had begun after then-prime minister Nawaz Sharif inaugurated it in February 2016 by performing the groundbreaking.
Later, the project was extended by another 10 kilometres as initially sought by the Sindh government and the estimated cost crossed the figure of Rs24bn.
The project was estimated to be completed by the end of 2017, but kept getting new deadlines. Since the launch of the scheme, the battered roads on either side of the route have turned into a great source of nuisance for commuters and for the shopkeepers doing their businesses.
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