Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry has called upon the government to ensure timely completion of ongoing Metro Bus Project to avoid any further inconvenience to business community and the residents of twin cities.

 

Muzammil Hussain Sabri, President, Islamabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry said that business community had supported this important project due to its great utility for the commuters and had demanded its completion within target date to avoid any problems to trade and industrial activities, however reports about further delay in its deadline were creating concerns in all stakeholders. 

 

He said at the inaugural of Metro Bus Project on 23rd March 2014, the Prime Minister of Pakistan had announced its completion within 10 months while the Chairman Metro Bus Project Implementation & Monitoring Committee during his visit to ICCI had assured its finishing at least two months in advance of deadline. However despite extending its target date from 24th Dec. 2014 to 31st January 2015, there was still lot of work left to be done which meant the project might get delayed and he urged upon the government to speed up work on its all packages to ensure its completion within given date in order to save the stakeholders from further trouble. 

 

He said already the Peshawar Mor Interchange has faced lot of delay due to the fact that the contractor could not effectively mobilize the machinery and manpower and stressed upon the Project Implementation Committee to sort out all matters for completing the remaining work within set timeframe. 

 

He said Islamabad’s residents including business community and thousands of daily commuters had been facing great inconvenience for the last 9 months due to road blocks, diversions and heavy dust on account of construction work of this project and in these circumstances, its timely completion was of paramount importance. 

 

Muzammil Sabri also welcomed the government’s move to extend metro bus project to Tarnol and Rawat in order to connect these areas with Islamabad which would greatly facilitate the commuters. However, he emphasized that government should take measures to run this project on self-finance basis instead of providing annual subsidy of Rs.1.5 billion to ensure its commercial viability.