Committee finalizes report on KCR project

KARACHI: The eight-member committee headed by Commissioner Karachi Shoaib Ahmed Siddiqui for the project of Karachi Circular Railway has finally completed a report which will be presented to the government in its final meeting on Friday.

In this regard, the commissioner presided over a meeting with the eight-member committee at his office.

The eight-member committee was constituted by the government for the project and it was given a deadline of May 20th to propose report on recommendations, which it has made before its time in a third meeting. Siddiqui said that since provincial government, federal government and all stakeholders are on the same page for the first time, so there was no force to stop this project to appear physically on track and we have finalised a workable and easy achievable report.

Secretary Finance Sohail Rajput, Secretary Transport Tuaha Ahmed Farooqui, Administrator Karachi Rauf Akhter Farooqui, Managing Director Karachi Urban Transport Corporation (KUTC) Shamim Ahmed Sherazi, Project Director KUTC Ijaz Hussain Khilji, Divisional Superintendant Pakistan Railway Nisar Ahmed Memon, SSP PR Robin Yamin and other relevant officers were also present on the occasion.

Clarifying one of the biggest issues lying in route of KCR project, he told PPI: It is just a hype that encroachments are hurdles, but in my opinion, as we have surveyed the land, it is not a big deal to remove encroachments from the route comparing to removing encroachments from within the city, he told PPI.

He said that the authorities had expressed determination to revive the KCR project in the tenure of present government in order to provide modern, rapid and low-cost transportation facilities to the citizens.

Sherazi said that the project was a few steps away, and one of them was almost complete.

First, we would present our recommendations to the Sindh government; second, the Sindh government would pass one of our suggestions to Pakistan government and, then, the project would start appearing physically on the track.

He told PPI that the KCR would be equipped with all the facilities available in any railway project around the world.

Initially, we would start with each train every 5 minutes with facilitating overall around 0.6 million commuters a day, then, all the numbers of facilities would start increasing gradually, he told.

Sources said that the project was designed to be completed in eight months after getting green light from the government and a concrete wall would be erected along the tracks to save the land from encroachers while security pickets would be built on the route to save the tracks from criminals.