Orange Line Metro Train, Pakistan’s first electric train, is going to consume 1.35 million electricity units every day when it starts functioning next month.
As per details, the Lahore Electric Supply Company (LESCO) has informed the provincial government that two test runs of the electric train used massive 2.7 million electric units worth Rs. 50 million.
LESCO informed the government that the Orange Line train will consume Rs. 25 million worth of electricity daily to run uninterrupted. This means that Punjab will have to pay an electric bill of a whopping Rs. 750 million every month for this ‘white elephant’ project that only serves on a 27-kilometer short track. This is besides the other operational and management costs.
Note that Punjab Chief Minister Usman Buzdar-led Punjab government had refused to give Rs. 10 billion subsidies for the project, saying that they would rather fund government schools and hospitals with this fund.
In a provincial cabinet meeting earlier this week, it was revealed that the government will have to pay an additional Rs. 10 billion annual subsidies even if it keeps the ticket price at Rs. 60 per trip.
Refusing to approve such a hefty amount for a single project, it decided to send back the matter to Punjab Assembly for further deliberation.
On a separate occasion, former spokesperson for CM Buzdar, Shahbaz Gill, had revealed that the government will have to fix the ticket fare at Rs. 285 per head to run Orange Train without any loss. Even in this case, Rs. 6.5 billion alone will go in the interest payment on the debt obtained for the project.