Mehdi laments slow work on Red Line scheme during caretaker regime

Sindh Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) General Secretary Senator Waqar Mehdi has expressed concern over slow progress in the construction of the corridor of the Red Line Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project since the formation of the caretaker government in Sindh.

In a statement issued on Thursday, the PPP leader said the Red Line corridor was being built as the cornerstone of the modern mass transit system conceived for the residents of Karachi. He mentioned that the previous Sindh government of the PPP had started work on the project on the directives of PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari.

He said the slow pace of the construction had been causing immense problems to the residents and visitors to the areas of Old Sabzi Mandi, Hassan Square, Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Baitul Mukarram, NIPA, University of Karachi, Mosamiyat, and Safoora Chowrangi.

Senator Mehdi said the commuters using University Road remained stuck in traffic jams for hours on a daily basis due to the construction work going on at a snail’s pace. He appealed to Sindh Caretaker Chief Minister Justice (retd) Maqbool Baqar to visit the site of the under-construction corridor of the Red Line BRT project and issue directives for speeding up the pace of construction work.

He also urged the caretaker CM to immediately announce a traffic management plan to save motorists from excruciating traffic congestion on University Road. Meanwhile, in a separate statement, Karachi PPP President Saeed Ghani, who served as the labour minister in the last elected Sindh government, said the residents of Karachi had been suffering from depression owing to the poor performance of the K-Electric (KE).

Ghani lamented that the KE had implemented a “collective punishment” system in Karachi. He said certain residential areas of the city were being subjected to load-shedding lasting up to 14 hours daily. He added that prolonged power failures had affected children’s education and caused misery for senior citizens and patients.

According to Ghani, water supply to a number of areas in the city had been badly affected due to prolonged power cuts. He also criticised the KE for lodging criminal cases against the citizens who resorted to peaceful protests against its bad service. He demanded that the KE ensure uninterrupted power supply to the residents of Karachi.