THIS is apropos Arif Hasan’s article ‘KCR victims’ (Aug 25). The federal government has always dilly-dallied on Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) as well as other train projects in Sindh.

Therefore, it is not surprising that Pakistan Railways should claim in the Supreme Court that KCR is not a feasible project. If the federal government can support a $1.6 billion commuter train project for Lahore without even a feasibility study, how can Pakistan railways claim that KCR is not feasible?

Japan International Cooperation Agency had spent $11m on a feasibility study to offer a $1.8 billion soft loan. What did the federal government do? It had technically refused the Japanese offer.

There is a junk report circulating around in social media that the KCR will only cover about five per cent of the population in Karachi, and so it is a useless proposition. This is again a false propaganda to impede Karachi’s development and modernisation.

All over the world, a single train loop is seen to cover at best a one to four per cent of population. For example, San Francisco’s BART system provides transportation to only 231,000 commuters a day over its five loops, which is barely 3.2pc of the 7.15 million population of the area it covers, or 0.64pc per train loop. London’s underground is slightly better with 338,000 per line, or 4.1pc of its dense population.

In comparison, the KCR is designed to carry 700,000 passengers every day, or about five per cent of Karachi’s population on a single track line. In Karachi and Lahore, all the bus rapid transit systems will cover far less of a population than KCR.

The article also speaks of the plight of the encroachers. For the article to propose that some Sindh government entity must take care of these lawbreakers is wrong. These encroachers should be arrested and put behind bars for illegal trespass and must also be required to pay rent for all the time they have been there.

I urge the Sindh government not to lose heart and stand up to all the false attempts to derail KCR.

Syed Shams Naqvi
Lafayette, USA

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APROPOS the opinion piece ‘KCR victims’ (Aug 25) by Arif Hasan. The plight of the affected has been described in following words: “These are people who once had a roof over their head, legal gas and electricity meters, proper personal addresses and had been registered as voters.”

At present they are living under the open sky. The demolition of their houses started in the middle of Ramazan. What a time to start such an inhuman project! As for rehabilitation, it needs planning, time and above all money. From where this will come we do not know.

However, at this stage two things need to be looked at — firstly, the railway ministry needs to employ competent technical staff that can say (with good authority) that under the current circumstances to revive the KCR project is not feasible.

Secondly, the law ministry and elected representatives should look at the whole picture and see what their orders can do — this unprecedented move has ruined the lives of thousands of people.

Prof Khalid Hassan Mahmood
Karachi

Published in Dawn, September 5th, 2019