KARACHI, Sept 27: A team of Japanese technical experts has arrived here to conduct a survey of the Karachi Circular Railway for preparing a feasibility report.

The team has been dispatched by the Japan External Trade Organization, which is a Japanese government-related organization. It is supposed to start the study of the KCR project in a few days and complete the same the end of January next year, members of the team told Dawn on Tuesday.

They said that the technical team comprised 10 members of whom seven had already arrived and the remaining ones would be joining them soon. The team members, affiliated with different organizations in Japan, would stay in Karachi for three weeks, they added.

Akiyama Yoshihiro, who heads the team is the Director of the International Information Department in the Japan Railway Technical Service. He said: “We will conduct the study until January next and prepare a report which will be submitted with the Japanese government.”

He said that if the feasibility report found the project viable, Tokyo would extend a soft-loan for its execution.

The Ministry of Railways has directed KCR project director to extend all possible assistance to the experts’ team in conducting the study. Similar directives have been issued to all departments concerned which have been told to work in close coordination with the team so that the objective was achieved in a shortest possible period of time.

The ministry has impressed upon the project director to play his due role in ensuring close coordination among all departments of the ministry, the Sindh government and city government Karachi, as well as other stakeholders.

The government has been striving hard to revive the KCR project and towards this goal, it has already got the Landhi/Malir-Wazir Mansion passenger train service resumed. The service had formally been inaugurated in March this year by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

For the revival of all KCR services, several studies had been conducted but none of them has, so far, materialized. The provincial government has already spent more than Rs3 billion on the construction of flyovers above certain level-crossings across the city to ensure an uninterrupted flow of vehicular and rail traffic. However, the KCR could not be revived fully since the PR stopped operating all KCR train services on Dec 15, 1999 citing recurring losses.

The Japanese delegation was on Tuesday briefed about the transport system and KCR by Director-General of the Karachi Mass Transit Programme (KMTP) Malik Zaheerul Islam, who also holds the additional charge of the EDO Transport and Communication, adds APP.

At a meeting, held in the office of the TC department, the delegation was apprised of the steps taken by provincial and local governments.

The team was told that despite the fact that 400 new vehicles would add every day to the already operating vehicles in Karachi, people were still facing commuting problems because of the inadequate number of buses.

It was informed of the government’s plan to induct another 8,000 new CNG buses.

The team members were informed that an MoU had been signed with a US firm viz-a-viz the 15.2-km-long corridor between Sohrab Goth and Tower.