Federal, Sindh govts agree to start trail run of KCR

The Sindh and federal government have agreed to start a trail runs of local train in Karachi in next two month on 12 kilometre railway track.

As per the the presser by the Chief Minister’s officer, the decision was made during the meeting between Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah and Federal Minister for Planning and Development Asad Umar.

The two had met to formulate a strategy for the launch of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) and to implement the Supreme Court orders to start local train projects in the port city.

The meeting decided to start local trains on a track of 12 kilometres from City Station to SITE as a trial run during the next two months. The two leaders also discussed whether the local train system would sync in with the modern railway system of KCR.

CM Shah told that the KCR was commissioned in 1964 and was used till 1984 and closed in 1999 after losing its "operational efficiency".

He added that the Sindh government had approved the initial PC-I for KCR's revival in 2006, which was approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) in 2012 at the cost of $2.6 billion.

Later, the KCR was included in the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework at the cost of $1.971 billion and was supposed to be completed within 36 months.

Meanwhile, planning minister Asad Umar assured the Sindh chief minister that the federal government was serious to start the KCR project at the earliest.

According to documents, the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) — worth Rs300 billion — has been included as one of the projects under the Rs802-billion KTP's mass transit systems. While China would provide Rs250 billion, the government of Sindh would add Rs50 billion to the project.