KARACHI: City govt looking for investors to run KCR
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 26: The city government is striving hard to give the metropolis a modern transport system which will be available within three years of the finalization of an agreement.
This was stated by Karachi City Nazim Naimatullah Khan during his post-budget conference held at the KMC Building secretariat on Wednesday.
Responding to a question, he said that the government had been working on various options, including revitalization of Karachi Circular Railway. Its feasibility report had been prepared which indicated its revitalization cost to be Rs 12 billion. But as the Pakistan Railways had declined to run the KCR, the government was looking for investors to make the project feasible.
Another project pertains to magnetic levitation train for which the city government had signed a memorandum of understanding with Inter-Globe (a Swiss-German firm), he pointed out and said this project would cost $ 1.2 billion equivalent Rs 75 billion and if this project was finalized it would take three years to become operational.
He said during his recent visit to China, he had an opportunity to see the working of the firm.
However, Naimatullah Khan said that in order to resolve immediate transport problem, efforts were being made to induct large buses running on CNG or diesel and for this purpose Overseas Pakistanis had been negotiating with Hino-Pak and hoped that this project would soon be finalized.
Regarding water problem in Karachi, the Nazim said the government had planned to find out other sources of water in addition to Hub dam and River Indus to meet the shortage of water. He said in this connection possibilities were being looked into to use water from the Hub river-bed and Malir river bed by installing tube-wells.
He pointed out that before coming into being of Pakistan, the source of water supply used to be from Damloti tube wells and if the project of Malir river-bed and Hub river-bed was found feasible, tube-wells would be installed to meet the water requirement of the towns in their vicinities.
To another question, he said apart from introducing mechanised sweeping in the city, efforts were being made to use solid waste management to earn revenue as being practised in all big cities. He said in the metropolis instead of using the solid waste to generate revenue, Rs 800 million were being spent.
