Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur also deserve BRT service: PTI

Hailing Prime Minister Imran Khan and the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for inaugurating the Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) service in Peshawar, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf leaders have asked why the residents of Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur have been deprived of such a service, saying that they fully deserve this modern bus rapid transit system.

Addressing a press conference at the Sindh Assembly on Thursday, PTI parliamentary party leader in Sindh Assembly Haleem Adil Sheikh, along with lawmakers Shahnawaz Jadoon, Ali Aziz GG, Ramzan Ghanchi, and Kareem Bux Gabol, said the 26-kilometre Peshawar BRT had been completed in two years.

“During its 12-year rule in the province, the Pakistan Peoples Party’s Sindh government had not even brought 12 new buses onto roads,” he said. “They [Sindh government] had claimed bringing thousands of buses, but it did not run even a single bus in the megacity of Karachi.”

Sheikh remarked that if Peshawar could get the BRT service, why the citizens of Karachi and other major cities of the province were deprived of it. “Karachi generates 70 per cent of revenue of Pakistan, then why development projects are not being undertaken here?”

The PTI leader said three honourable judges had also said that Sindh was the most corrupt province of Pakistan. “The performance of the PPP and PTI governments could be compared keeping in mind that the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government had completed the 27.9-km BRT in two years, while the inept government in Sindh cannot build the 3.9-kilometer Orange Line in five years.”

He said there was “only one line in Sindh, and that is the Corruption Line”. He said the people of Peshawar would now travel on BRT buses, but “our children in Karachi travel on the rooftops of old minibuses”.

He said the PTI government had initiated an Ehsaas Nashonuma Programme, pointing out that 40 per cent of children faced malnutrition in Pakistan. “Ehsaas Nashonuma centres are being opened in nine districts of the country and six such centres would be opened in the Badin district in Sindh.”

The PTI leader said this programme would be also extended to other districts in Sindh.”The federal government is also issuing health cards for the entire country, but the Sindh government is not ready to give its share. It is not ready to give facilities to its citizens.”

He said the federal government had given 275,000 health cards in Tharparkar from its share. “Under the Ehsaas emergency cash programme Rs159.36 billion have already been distributed, with Rs52 billion distributed in Sindh.”

Welcoming the chief justice of Pakistan’s remarks about the provincial government’s performance, Sheikh said Sindh from Karachi to Kashmore was being made a Katchra Kundi (garbage dump). He said Karachi was Sindh and Sindh was Karachi. “The federal government has already given its share for the K-4 project, but this vital project is still incomplete.”

Sheikh said the Sindh rulers were not ready to give Karachi a respectable public transport system. He added that the chief minister was the chairman of the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board and to lift garbage was his responsibility.

He said nobody knew how Sindh spent its budget during the last 12 years. “We wanted to initiate new projects in Sindh, but they alleged that a new East India Company was being formed.”

He clarified the federal government was not taking over Karachi, and these were false allegations to misguide the people. “We want to resolve the problems of Karachi and the unity of Sindh would remain intact. No double system is coming to Sindh.”

He said Article 149 only says that if any province does not work properly, the federal government can only instruct it to do the work properly. Prime Minister Imran Khan had ordered a clean Karachi and there was no shortage of funds in this regard, he added.