The ill-planning of Peshawar BRT

Mix incompetence, myopia, empty rhetoric, blind following and sprinkle a bit of delusion, hype making and then cover tightly through media management skills and you have PTI in general and PTI's government in particular in Khyber Pakhtunkwa. Their recent spectacle of incompetency is the BRT: a project which could have done much good but which is turning out to be the worst planned project carried out in the country (may be the whole world?) The project doesn't have a PC-1 design nor its design draft is finalized. Till now there are 22 changes in the design of the project. The latest modification is going to cost in excess of 3 billion rupees.

The project is so ill-planned that many of the work done for the previous design is undone for the sake of the next design and they then realize that the construction does has to be undone for the sake of the new modification. It has become a circular circus. An underpass was dug but it was found out that two buses can't pass through it so it now works as swimming pool (joking). More than 50 columns were raised then it was realized that they don't align to the new design and thus they were demolished. Many such blunders is topped by the recent blunder where a whole flyover which was made just a few years ago at the expense of billions of rupees is going to be demolished for the sake of BRT. One day they may have demolish the whole of Peshawar for the sake of BRT.

This is not an attack on the concept of BRT. I am of the opinion that Peshawar needed/needs such a project. It is the ill-planning, the incompetency that has crippled life in Peshawar and that is wasting billions of rupees of taxpayers money. For years Imran Khan was making fun of "Jungla" bus service and instead claimed to be be bringing institutional reforms. When the election became near and he realized that the institutional reforms was just a myth and that they can't take any votes on that they rushed to have a development project for the sake of coming elections. Instead of forcing the project to be completed in time for elections they could have planned it well and should have let the next government to complete it. Their myth of institutional reforms was busted by this ill-planning and worse execution of the project. If they had strengthened institutions then how can this happen? Billions of rupees from the tax board are directed toward the project which has deprived the whole province of development. Whenever a history of incompetency, inefficiency and weak institutions will be written the KP government, 2013-2018 will be on top of the list.