15 May 2004	Saturday	24 Rabi-ul-Awwal 1425

KARACHI, May 14: The city district government and a Chinese group of companies on Thursday signed a preliminary implementation agreement for laying a 15.2 km-long double track for light-rail transit system in the city at an estimated cost of US dollars 569.387 million.

With the introduction of a fast AC light-rail transit system on Corridor-I, from Sohrab Goth to Mereweather Tower, initially around 400,000 commuters would benefit.

Later on, this facility would be extended up to New Sabzimandi on Superhighway.

Under the accord, signed by the City Nazim Niamatullah Khan on behalf of the CDGK and China National Machinery and Equipment Group's (CNMEG) senior vice president Ms Gu Zhengxie, a 15.2 km- long double track (8 kms elevated and 7.2kms underground), would be laid between Sohrab Goth and Mereweather Tower in four-and-a- half years.

According to a new strategy developed by the city government's KMTS, the project which is commonly known as Light- Rail Transit System's Corridor No 1 (from Sohrab Goth to Mereweather Tower), will have 14 stations (seven each on elevated and underground) tracks of the light-rail system.

The stations are to be set up at Water Pump, Aisha Manzil, Karimabad, Liaquatabad-10, Dakhana, Tin Hatti, Quaid's mausoleum, Al-Hamra, Garden Road, Eidgah, defunct KMC head office, Boulton Market.

Salient features of the agreement were unfolded at a news conference, jointly addressed by the city Nazim, Niamatullah Khan and the CNMEG's senior vice president Ms Gu Zhengxie, at a local hotel.

Chinese consul-general at Karachi Sun Chun Ye, DCO Mir Hussain Ali, DG mass transit Malik Zaheer-ul-Islam, EDO Works and Services, Shoaib Siddiqui, city Nazim's advisor Salim Azhar and a number of senior officials were present at the ceremony.

Divulging the details of the accord, the Nazim said that 90 per cent of the project's total cost (US$569.387 million plus insurance, commitment and management fee) which comes to US$ 512.448 million would be arranged from China as suppliers credit finance while the remaining 10 per cent of the contract amount would be contributed by the CDGK in US dollars.

The CDGK would arrange sovereign re-payment guarantee from the federal government for re-payment of principal and interest amounts, he said, adding the CDGK would request the ministry of finance for inclusion of the financing of the project under the preferential loan protocol signed during the last visit of President Pervez Musharraf to China.

He said that credit to be obtained from China will be repaid in 15 years with three years grace period with an interest rate of 3.5 per cent per annum or at par with the OCED (CIRR) rate.

Terming the accord a 'milestone' and first of its kind in the city's history, he said of the total seven firms which had pre-qualified for the project, an American and a Chinese firm had submitted their proposals on Jan 20, but after a lengthy discussions, the Chinese firm (CNMEG) was selected for undertaking the project keeping in view its expertise.

Deploring that the mass transit projects remained in paper in the past, it had now been made functional and the CDGK had planned five corridors for the city's mass transit system.

The city's mass transit system had been lingering for more that two decades and a huge amount of Rs 320 million had been spent on conducting mass transit studies from 1987 to 2001. This amount, however, did not include the money incurred on a dozen of mass transit studies and three master plans, prepared between 1951 and 2001 to help resolve the city's transport problem.

Speaking on the occasion, the CNMEG's senior vice president, Ms Gu Zhengxie, said that though her company had been undertaking different projects in Pakistan for the last 10 years, the laying of double tracks for the light-rail transit system was a challenging task for the company and hence the company had decided to seek help of other Chinese firms which had undertaken similar projects in China and abroad.