Petition To Block the Peshawar Bus Project
A writ petition has been filed in the Peshawar High Court, asking it to stay the execution of Bus Rapid Transit System and declare it illegal.
Maulana Amanullah Haqqani of the Jamiat Ulama-i-Islam-Fazl filed the petition on the 21st of October 2017, just two days after the project’s inauguration, citing “technical and legal flaws” in the project. Through his counsel, the petitioner submitted that there were many flaws in the project design due to which it was bound to fail, unnecessarily burdening the people with loans. It was pointed out that no feasibility report had been prepared and no development work could be taken up without such a report.
“The project’s draft design was never prepared while its preliminary design was approved even before preparing a detailed design. This also violates normal procedure for executing any development project,” the petitioner submitted. The Provincial Developmental Working Party (PDWD) also raised an objection, claimed the petitioner, expressing concern over a possible public inconvenience in alleged absence of alternative arrangements for movement of traffic in the city. Moreover, the old transport system would be replaced which might render transporters jobless, besides having a negative impact on the city’s businesses. With a few months left in the expiry of the government’s tenure, starting such a big project was likely to become a liability for the coming governments of the province, and thus could not be permitted legally, he added. The project, he pointed out, also lacked approval from the Central Developmental Working Party and the Executive Committee of National Economics.
The petitioner also pointed out that the Provincial Cabinet or the Provincial Assembly, as required under Articles 129, 130, 120 and 124 of the Constitution, had not approved the project. It was stated that it was not possible to run such a huge project without a subsidy, making it a constant burden on the exchequer of the province.
