Pakistan has been going through a bad patch and the
corruption scandals have been hampering the investment from coming into the
country. The international institutions are rating Pakistan negatively and the
country’s repute has been damaged badly due to such reports. In such times,
when the entire country is going through this turmoil, there is one unit of the
federation that stands out among all and it is Punjab. Over the past five years
if there is any place in the country where foreign direct investment has come
then it is Punjab and the only reason behind the trust of the foreign investors
in this province is better governance.
One of the biggest achievements of Punjab Government in this
regard is the Rapid Bus Transit System
which has been set up in Lahore with the cooperation of Turkish government. The
friendly states have always enjoyed cordial relations with each other but the
current Punjab government has introduced the level of mutual cooperation and
trade to new horizons. This, in itself is a great achievement that the two
major Islamic countries have come together to help each other out in whatever
ways they can. A major investment in the city of Lahore was made by Turkish
government is the RBTS and it is a milestone achieved by the leaders of both
the countries.
The current Punjab government is run by the conservative
right wing political party of PakistanMuslim League (Nawaz), the largest political party of Punjab whose leader
Nawaz Sharif is a major contender of the Premiership of the country in the
upcoming general elections that are to be held in the first half of 2013. The
party has been pro-development in all its tenures in power and has been
building airports, roads and bridges in major cities like Karachi and Lahore
and Motorway which is the biggest construction project in Pakistan’s history
was also carried out under its government in 1998-99. The leader of the party
is himself a successful industrialist and thus knows the importance of business
and commerce in shaping the economy of the country and ways to improve it.
The current project that is under discussion is the Rapid
Bus Transit System which is the biggest intra-city transportation system in the
country and first of its kind as well. This was the foremost requirement in the
biggest city and business hub of the country that is Karachi but the federal
and provincial governments, like other problems, have been insensitive to this
issue of the City of Lights as well. The main features of the RBTS are as
under:
1)
27 kilometer long route beginning from Shahdrah
Town to Gajju Mata near Kasur district.
2)
160 passenger space in each bus and a bus coming
in after every three minutes.
3)
The modern electronic ticketing system has been
set up that is hardly seen in the third world.
4)
Tickets will be available at reasonable prices
with world class transportation quality.
5)
The buses are equipped with modern
air-conditioning system that keeps the temperature inside the bus mild to make
the journey comfortable.
This will be of great assistance in the coming years as the
traffic in the metropolitan city of Lahore has become a major issue and the
long wait that the citizens need to do on the traffic signals was becoming
unbearable. This was definitely the need of the hour that the public transport
in the city was made respectable enough that the car owners feel it more
convenient to travel by bus than by their personal cars. As per the estimates,
Ferozepur Road, which is the busiest road of the city, witnesses 427,000
vehicles passing it every day. The traffic hazards were bound to be created
with such enormous amount of cars, trucks, buses and motorbikes using the road
every day. On the other hand the fuel consumption is also a major issue and the
rising prices internationally have made it almost impossible for the common man
to make the both ends meet.
It was these reasons that the Government of Punjab had in
mind and that it was bent on resolving. RBTS will certainly help a lot in this
regard and the modern LTC buses that were imported during the last couple of
years have also helped curbing the transportation problems on other busy roads
like The Mall, Multan Road and the Jail Road. The citizens of other provinces
also express gratitude for Lahore getting one of its major issues resolved.
This service that the Punjab Government has provided to its capital city has
also inclined the citizens in other provinces towards the Pakistan Muslim
League (Nawaz) and might help the party to get some good chunk of votes from
other provinces as well.
