KARACHI: KCR revival plan shelved as Islamabad refuses funds
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, Sept 3: The revival plan for the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) was shelved on Tuesday on the pretext of non- availability of funds and the provincial and city governments have been asked to explore other ways to improve the transport management system.
The decision was taken in a meeting at the Governor’s House following a detailed presentation to President Gen Pervez Musharraf about the revival of the KCR operation, officials who attended the meeting told Dawn.
They said after the presentation, the meeting observed that the federal government was unable to provide funds for the revival of the KCR.
The meeting, however, felt the gravity of traffic problems in the city and suggested exploration of other cheaper and more environmental-friendly ways for the improvement of transport facilities. It pointed out that foreign and local entrepreneurs be approached for their investment in the transport sector without seeking funds or financial guarantee from the federal government.
The meeting asked the provincial and the city governments to persuade the investors that there was a vast potential in the transport sector.
The sources said the meeting did not take up the fate of the existing infrastructure of the KCR and its tracks which are in a dilapidated condition with encroachments propping up unabated on either side of the tracks.
Sources in the transport department said since the KCR operation was suspended on Dec 15, 1999, by the Pakistan Railways (PR), the dispute over the KCR land had not been settled between the provincial government and the PR.
The railway authorities claimed that the land along the tracks of the KCR was owned by the Pakistan Railways, while Sindh government maintained that the land belonged to it which it had given to the PR to use it for the operation of the circular railway, the sources said.
The dispute has been lingering on and the builder mafia has taken advantage of it by encroaching upon the land at various places. The Sindh government claimed that the railway authorities were least concerned in getting the encroached land vacated. The provincial and the city governments had spent huge amounts to safeguard the tracks and the KCR infrastructure from being encroached upon, but the builder mafia has been manoeuvring to grab the land through one way or the other.
The builder mafia has grabbed the precious land along the KCR tracks, such as the one near the Gilani Railway Station in Gulshan-i-Iqbal, on which residential complexes have been constructed by encroaching upon the KCR land.
The provincial government had spent more than Rs3 billion on construction of flyovers on the railway level-crossings in the city for an uninterrupted flow of the circular train.
The sources feared that the KCR project would ultimately be abandoned and the shelving was being done on the pressure of the builder mafia, who wanted to grab the precious land of the KCR on a throw away price.
The transport mafia has also played a big role in rejection of the KCR revival plan because of its vested interest.
The sources said the transport mafia, in alleged connivance with some officials in the provincial and the federal governments, has become powerful enough to turn public interest projects in its favour.
The rejection of the revival of the KCR operation could be due to an alleged intrigue hatched by the transport mafia. Had the KCR been operative and its tracks extended to some other localities, linking up the entire city, the importance of the public transporters and their monopoly would have been broken.
The reduction in vehicular traffic and the public transport volume after the revival of the KCR could also help reduce air and noise pollution, besides bringing down the number of fatal and non-fatal accidents, the sources observed.
The KCR, which made its debut some time in 1969 with 14 up and 14 down trains, was popular enough among the people of middle, lower middle and working classes for shuttling between their places of work and homes.
By the time and with the horizontal expansion of the city, the transporters’ clout made its way into the transport authority and in 1975 its first victim was the city’s tramway service run by Mohammad Ali Tramway Company when Karachi was deprived of a cheapest mode of transport between Garden, M.A. Jinnah Road, Mereweather Tower, Keamari, Soldier Bazaar, Saddar and the Cantonment Railway Station.
