KARACHI: Hours after Prime Minister Imran Khan asked the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) to shed `all political differences’ for the development of Karachi on Monday, the Sindh ministers raised serious questions over the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) plan and said the federal government has performed its groundbreaking in haste.

They said the KCR was in fact revived in 2004 and the federal government was just taking credit for the job done by past governments.

The ministers also claimed that the federal government had announced groundbreaking of the huge public transport project without hiring a consultant and waiting for its survey data, which was crucial to determine the estimated time for its completion.

They said the survey could take two years but the federal government was misleading the people by promising them to launch the project by 2023.

Centre accused of taking credit for the job done by past governments

Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani said the project was actually revived in 2004.

“The JICA [Japan International Cooperation Agency] was then assigned the task to prepare its feasibility and suggest its effectiveness after so many years. The JICA completed its job in 2006. Finally in 2016, the then CM [Sindh] Murad Ali Shah had proposed [the then prime minister] Nawaz Sharif to make KCR part of the CPEC [China-Pakistan Economic Corridor]. This is the history of this project. Since then the previous and this current federal governments were ignoring this project. The PTI government only moved on KCR after the Chief Justice took suo motu notice and ordered to revive the service,” he said.

Mr Ghani questioned the PTI government’s claim to make “new modern KCR” while referring to route plan shared by the Pakistan Railways which suggested that the service would be launched on the same route which was originally designed in 1964.

He assured the prime minister and the federal government of due support of the Sindh government but said there were several questions and confusions which were needed to get answers. “It will be better for both sides to know the details and have all relevant data for effective restoration of the KCR,” he added.

Sindh Transport Minister Syed Awais Qadir Shah said in a statement that the mega project would fail to give the desired results due to several technical shortfalls.

“First, the project was never approved by any relevant forum,” he said. “Secondly, even if you [the federal government] have decided to launch the project at any cost, you need to do it properly. These kinds of huge and massive projects always require services of internationally-reputed consultants which advise the government about the next step. No consultant has been hired yet, which puts a question mark on this project.”

Secondly, he said, the federal government had already finalised its building plan where it had to raise elevated structure and where it would build underpasses without waiting for the results of the survey. The survey, he claimed, could take two years to give the accurate data.

“I am unable to understand how the federal government is claiming that the Karachi people would enjoy services of the KCR by 2023. Transparency in awarding contract in multi-billion rupee project always remains a concern and we as a partner in the project don’t know what mechanism the federal government has built for this purpose,” said Mr Shah.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2021