KARACHI, Aug 10: The ministry of Railways has asked for takeover of Karachi mass transit programme (KMTP) from the Sindh government for revival of the Karachi Circular Railway, well-placed sources in the government told Dawn.

However, the Sindh government had strongly objected to the proposal floated by the railway ministry and said that inter-city railway was a federal subject and urban transport system was the responsibility of provincial or local government. In any case the revitalization of the KCR did not fall under the mass transit system, the sources claimed.

The sources said that the railway ministry had submitted a summary to the federal cabinet about the revival of the KCR and transfer of the KMTP to the ministry of railways. As the summary was relating to the matter falling under the jurisdiction of the Sindh government, the federal cabinet sent it for seeking comments of the provincial government.

The provincial government had filed its comments turning down the proposal of the railways ministry about the transfer of the KMTP from the local government to the railways.

The railway had closed the KCR operation in Dec 1999, claiming huge losses, but taking a sudden U-turn, again showed interest in the revival of operation. In this respect, the railway ministry proposed a plan at a high-level meeting held on July 23, in Karachi.

At the meeting, which was presided over by Sindh governor, and attended by railway minister, Sindh chief minister, Sindh Chief Secretary, City Nazim, two provincial ministers, officials of railway and provincial and city transport departments, the railway ministry stressed the Sindh government to approve the proposed summary and express its consent to transfer of the KMTP to the railway ministry.

A committee, headed by Sindh chief secretary, was also formed by the meeting with the directives to submit its recommendations within a month. Since its formation, the chief secretary did not convene any meeting of the committee as the Sindh government had serious reservations on the proposed summary.

Besides, the railways ministry, in its summary, also proposed that a consultant would also be asked to examine the possibility of evolving a rail-cum-road system involving some of the licensed bus operators. The Sindh government replied that the rail-cum-road system in urban areas fell under the purview of the provincial or local government.

The railways ministry suggested that the development and operation of trains on the KCR may be licensed to a private operator. The licensing shall be undertaken by the railway regulatory authority in the process of being set up, which would regulate the private services on the KCR.

However, the provincial government said that the city government had recently invited Expression of Interest (EoI) for pre-qualification of firms or implementation of rail-based mass transit system (phase-I) for Karachi, on build-operate-transfer (BOT) basis, which had received good response from private parties. A similar action had been taken by the Punjab government and the City district government of Lahore.

Expressing its readiness for restarting train operation on the KCR, the railway ministry asked the Sindh government to reimburse the shortfall in the revenues.

In its comments, the Sindh government said that it had considered KCR as Pakistan Railways own scheme. The KCR operation failed due to improper alignment in a smaller semi-circle through the fast developing city areas; non-provision of double tracks for KCR; slowing down of the KCR trains; increasing journey time etc, which had forced passengers to switch over to faster means of transportation, and consequently, the Pakistan railways had to curtail the services and closed it down, later, observed the Sindh government.

However, the efforts by the Pakistan Railways to revitalize the KCR were welcomed by the Sindh government and it pledged cooperation for the revival of the KCR, through removal of encroachments etc.

However, the Sindh government and the City government wanted to be allowed to takeover the mass transit system in the urban areas of Karachi, which the governments opined was the local government’s sole jurisdiction as per SLGO-2001.