PESHAWAR: Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Transport Secretary Kamran Rehman Khan has been removed from his post, a notification issued said.
Dr Muhammad Fakhar-e-Alam Irfan, a senior member of the Board of Revenue, has been given additional charge as the new transport secretary of the province, the notification added.
Kamran Rehman Khan’s removal comes as criticism grows louder over the ongoing delay in the Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) project, which was slated to be completed in six months but remains unfinished 17 months later.
The project, hailed as a “world-class transport service” aimed at generating “greater economic activity and prosperity in the city” on its official website, was launched by former chief minister Pervez Khattak during his tenure.
Construction on the project began in October 2017, but work on the fixed-rail continues to this day.
The BRT line is a 26-kilometre east-west corridor in the city, designed to move thousands of passengers per day. Of the total 31 bus stations, 11 are still incomplete. Work on the three bus depots, at Chamkani, Hayatabad and Dabgari, is unfinished. Over 200 buses were to reach Peshawar. So far, only 21 have arrived from China.
During all of this, the cost of the corridor has shot up from Rs49 billion to Rs66 billion.
