Thread by @OonibAzam_

Surprised to see such biased reporting by Samaa that too, more astonishingly, was picked up @SamaaEnglish. 😳
I have covered this project since it’s inception. The reporter needs to get his facts straight and emotions at home.
Thread

> Feb 26 then PM @NawazSharifMNS laid down the foundation for the Green Line BRT
>The project was supposed to be completed by April 27
>I kept a close eye on its construction process.

>Due to Sindh govt's bureaucratic red tape the federal govt mandated KIDCL faced several hiccups in the project's construction.
>The project was initially planned to be constructed from Surjani Town to Guru Mandir, where it was supposed to join the Blue Line BRT.

>due to delays in the Sindh govt's Blue Line, the then federal govt decided to extend Green Line all the way to Pakistan Chowk.

>In August 2017 construction of underpass at city's Numaish intersection underwent. In October, 2017 the construction work halted because the ADB-funded Red Line BRT, to from Safoora to Numaish had to be integrated in the Green Line's track at Numaish.

>All this happened because of lack of coordination, ill-planning and red tape on the part of the Sindh government .

>By the year 2018 when PML-N government ended, the project was 90-percent completed up till Gurumandir and the Sindh government which was supposed to procure busses for the project failed to do so twice.

>In 2016 the SG signed a deal with a Turkish company, Al-Buraq International (Pvt) Limited, to procure buses for Green Line. After it failed, the provincial government signed another agreement the following year with a Lahore-based company, Crown Transport, with the same outcome.

>November 2018 the PTI-led federal government decided to procure the buses and operate the Green Line BRT for a few years, before handing it over to the provincial government. However, it took the PTI government 3years to get the buses delivered for the first BRT line of the city

In March 2019, during the first meeting in this regard, the SIDCL put forth a proposal for the BRT operations before the federal government that was accepted. On April 19 the same proposal was also approved in a board meeting of the SIDCL.

The approved project’s PC-1 was submitted to the federal government’s planning division department. Likewise, the World Bank, which has been engaged in the BRT, was asked to prepare the request for proposal.

The interested parties were asked to submit their proposals for the procurement of buses under public-private partnership, as the SIDCL wanted to hire an operator who would bring the buses and run them for a certain period.

Had everything gone well, the BRT operations could have started around February 2020, as the minimum time for the manufacturing of a bus is six months. Later, the SIDCL’s plan also failed.

After the approval of the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council, the company started a fresh procurement process.

All in all, the amount of time PTI government took in procurement of busses, the PML-N government constructed the entire project in much lesser time.
I am no supporter of PML-N, but one must keep the facts straight. ✌🏻