Green Line project, Phase 1-A to be ready by Dec

Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presided over a meeting of the Green Line BRT project and discussed three different options. He said the departments concerned would work out a detailed plan and submit their proposals at the next meeting.

The meeting was attended by Minister for Transport Syed Nasir Shah, Federal Secretary for Communication Siddique Memon, chairman of the P&D, Mohammad Waseem, PD Green Line project Soaleh Farooqui, Principal Secretary to the chief minister Sohail Rajput, transport secretary Saeed Awan, the secretary of Local Government, Ramzan Awan the consultant of the project Zubair Channa.

The federally-funded Green Line BRT project has attained more than 65 percent physical progress. Original scope of the project from Surjani to Guru Mandir (Phase 1-A) is nearing completion and will be finalized at the end of December 2017.

One of the key components of the Green Line BRT is the construction of state-of-the-art, highly automated bus depot at Surjani Town area near Abdullah Chowrangi. The Karachi Infrastructure Development Company Limited (KIDCL), the company responsible for construction of the project, has requested the Sindh government to provide 12 acres of land for the establishment of a bus depot.

The chief minister was told that the Sindh government has allotted only four acres which is insufficient for a depot. The chief minister directed his principal secretary and transport secretary to work out the proposal and arrange for an extra eight acres of land.

The conceptual design of the extension of Green Line was developed after the approval of the extension from Guru Mandir to Municipal Park and further into the CBD area. The longitude profile from Guru Mandir towards Numaish will be underground.

According to the proposal the section after the Numaish Intersection will be elevated through a signalized intersection up to Tibet Centre which would be turned around with elevated turn facility at Municipal Park as U-turn and the last BRT station along Green line BRTs. As per requirement of the Sindh a provision of extension of the BRTs at Municipal Park would be developed for further extension. There were three options for BRT Green Line route from Numaish to Municipal Park.