Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Qaim Ali Shah Friday approved the revival of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project. An announcement to this effect was made in a CM House statement issued here on Friday. It said that Syed Qaim Ali Shah was presiding over a high level meeting at the CM House here. Chief Minister said on the occasion that the KCR project was a long awaited one and that it must be revived in a shorter span of time.
He said that Karachi is the financial hub of the country and that its population is increasing with the passage of time and that the current transportation resources were not sufficient for such a huge population. The meeting was attended by Sindh Minister for Information, Sharjeel Inam Memon, Advisor to Chief Minister for Finance, Syed Murad Ali Shah, Sindh Chief Secretary, Muhammad Aijaz Chaudhri, Secretary Finance, Suhail Ahmed Rajput, Principal Secretary to CM, Naveed Kamran Baloch, Project Director of Karachi Urban Transport Corporation (KUTC) and other relevant officials.
Addressing the meeting Syed Qaim Ali Shah said that Karachi Circular Railway is a project long awaited for and it must now be revived in a short span of time. He said that Karachi is the financial capital of the country whose population is growing day by day and the current transportation resources are not sufficient for such a huge population. He further said that high and middle class of the society could afford private vehicles but the lower/ labour class is facing immense difficulties due to the shortage of public transport.
This section of society would be the chief beneficiary of this Circular Railway project. So this should be started without further delay. Sindh Chief Secretary, during the meeting, apprised the Chief Minister through power point presentations that currently there are approximately 47.3 percent motorcycles, 36.5 percent private vehicles, 4.5 percent public transport, whereas 9.9 percent and 1.7 percent are para transit and contract carriages respectively.
He told the meeting that the 4.5 percent of public transport vehicles carry 42 percent of total persons travelling in the city. Whereas private cars which is 36.5 percent of total vehicular traffic carry only 21% of persons. This leads to the conclusion that there is still deficiency of public transport availability on all major routes in the city and circular railway is the need of the hour, he added.
He further said that the route of Karachi Circular Railway would be run from NIPA KCR Station to North Nazimabad KCR Station then to Lyari, Machhar Colony, Saddar, Kala Pul at Mehran KCR station, and then rounding through PAF Museum Shahrah-e-Faisal and will link NIPA station and the circle will go on.
He added that the trains will be available after every five minutes. He further said that for proper and effective launching of the project the KCR will be connected with different areas of the city with the help of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT), and the passengers living as far as Surjani Town, areas near National Highway, Landhi, Korangi, Steel Mill, Malir and other areas will avail the BRT to reach at KCR stations. This will facilitate at least 2 million passengers on daily basis.
The Chief Minister Sindh said that the total length of the project would be 43 kilometres and one passenger would be charged for a full round of journey with maximum Rs 25, which means 50 paisa per kilometre, that is quite an affordable price. He said that currently around 0.7 million commuters use public transport on daily basis, but the figure would rise up to 3 million after proper and effective completion of the project.
The meeting was told that this project was first initiated by Japan's JICA, and then Technical and Financial evaluations were done from companies of Europe and USA on the advice of Planning Commission of Pakistan. The project would cost US dollars 2.6 billion which would make around Rs 247 billion and this would most probably be completed in 3 to 4 years.
The private investor would also be attracted for investment once it takes some physical shape. Sindh Chief Minister said that this is an already long-awaited project and it should not see any further delay, so that the common man should get relief as soon as possible.-PR
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