Pakistan's stalled China-backed rail project prompts turn to Japan

[BATMAN]

Karachi KRC and Orange line in Lahore is provincial CPEC project. Province will pay back debt but federal will give guarantee.

But for KRC to start first Sindh government will have to clear enroachments along with resettlement of people, not a easy thing to do in Karachi. They should go for slow and more expensive route of underground metro.

Than provincial govt. need to simply take the loan and misuse it as much possible responsible is federation. Any way this system was introduced by Zardari with advise from his masters abroad.

That would be stupid to spend billions to build underground because bunch of corrupt people are trying to make profit out of it.
Lahore orange line's cost was increased many billions just because Asma Jehangir and likes didn't wanted to close enough to some ruin.. called chauburji.

 

[Pakhtoon yum]

Than provincial govt. need to simply take the loan and misuse it as much possible responsible is federation. Any way this system was introduced by Zardari with advise from his masters abroad.

That would be stupid to spend billions to build underground because bunch of corrupt people are trying to make profit out of it.
Lahore orange line's cost was increased many billions just because Asma Jehangir and likes didn't wanted to close enough to some ruin.. called chauburji.

Subways are the way to go and while they are down there, they should make larger and more efficient sewage systems.

 

[BATMAN]

Subways are the way to go and while they are down there, they should make larger and more efficient sewage systems.

How are you connecting subway to sewage?
Public transport system in Pakistan, shall always be on the surface, not under ground.

 

[Pakhtoon yum]

How are you connecting subway to sewage?
Public transport system in Pakistan, shall always be on the surface, not under ground.

Why? The rest of the world must be insane for having underground transportation then. Pakistan must be the only sane country in the world. It's a shame how pakistan has no subways but countries smaller and poorer then pakistan do.

Karachi should have a subway system like this, at the start and then expand on it later on.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Forget KCR , first demand , audit trail of Money being spent

1,500,000,000,000, 1.5 Kharab Rupee budget
(2019-2020 Sindh budget 7.5 billion dollar + 1.5 billion dollar )

Where is money going ?

• Hypothetically 14% of budget can clean 40 cities of Sindh, like Lahore (I already gave a quick calculation based on Lahore cleanup budget per year)
• Where is 86% other remaining going ?

We already know they are not cleaning a single city in Sindh all 40 cities are dirty


Current Status of Sindh Government

• 0% spent on clean up after heavy rainfall few trucks and cranes are rented for TV showing they pick trash one place throw it in other neighborhood
• 100% of the money , no one has any money trail on expenditure
• Not 1 city out of 40 is clean

Raise the issue of 40 cities of Sindh ....not one is at world standard


Parks in Sindh = Shit
Roads in Sindh = Shit
City cleaning & Sanitation = Shit
Water transport & Sewage system = Shit
Hospitals = Shit , Larkana Hospitals spreading Aids in public
Police Performance = Shit
Not a Single Sports Academy world standard = Shit status
Not a single World class library with Million books = Shit status
Bus Transport system in Karachi = Shit , inter city travel some what ok

 

[Syed1.]

How are you connecting subway to sewage?
Public transport system in Pakistan, shall always be on the surface, not under ground.

Already congested cities like Lahore and Karachi cannot afford the already precious little space available to be given to dedicated metro tracks. Therefore, going underground is the only way to go. Obviously it is multiple times more expensive. However, the rest of the world is not stupid that they have underground metro. New York, London, Paris, Toronto etc etc etc all have underground metro systems for a reason.

 

[Nilgiri]

How does Karach circular railway be classed as a "China-Pakistan" corridor project? It's just a darned urban mass transit system.

Repeat how does urban mass transit in Karach fit into Belt and Road?

Along the way for political expediancy Nawaz government tried to include non Belt/Road projects as "CPEC" when clearly Lahore Metro has absolutely nothing to do with Belt and Road.

Yes I think you answered your own question...though I am unsure of what exactly CPEC was packaged and sold as in federal/local govt terms....given it also includes lot of energy projects too (so its clearly not just a grand trunk road/rail infra logistical program).

Obviously JICA would be much better for this project, since Japan has more quality capital buffer as its not commited to grand world infra networks (to essentially keep vast hordes of construction labourers+teams employed as long as possible rather than have to re-train and re-purpose them) like China is hedging on right now.

It is why Japan can offer much better terms like what @waz has pointed out for more insulated localised projects...simply put their forex buffer is not leveraged (visibly and invisibly) as much as Chinese one is.

So was it meant to be a part of the project initially or did this develop over time?

Yeah lot of this is somewhat unclear.

Pak friend of mine (who's dad is a higher up back in Pakistan, in a construction major) basically kind of says that there was core commited framework in initial CPEC gestation, but there was also MOU/un-assigned kind of spending/loan windows also created to be gestated on case by case basis....and there is somewhat dithering interest here from China's end to proceed with them right now. So JICA and other loan providers are being roped in esp. if terms are better.

 

[Syed1.]

Yes I think you answered your own question...though I am unsure of what exactly CPEC was packaged and sold as in federal/local govt terms....given it also includes lot of energy projects too (so its clearly not just a grand trunk road/rail infra logistical program).

Obviously JICA would be much better for this project, since Japan has more quality capital buffer as its not commited to grand world infra networks (to essentially keep vast hordes of construction labourers+teams employed as long as possible rather than have to re-train and re-purpose them) like China is hedging on right now.

It is why Japan can offer much better terms like what @waz has pointed out for more insulated localised projects...simply put their forex buffer is not leveraged (visibly and invisibly) as much as Chinese one is.

JICA has been offering to fund this project since Mush era.... this is not ground breaking news that you are disseminating... However, PPP has been in government in Sindh for the last 12 years and negotiations with JICA have broken down time and again and most people believe it because the PPP government is demanding bribe and kickbacks because of which JICA back out since they have a reputation to defend.

Last year when the door on JICA funding completely shut the PPP government lobbied to have the KCR project included in CPEC, it was put in preliminarily but since it is not a national level project it is way down in the list of "priority projects" hence maybe that is why the news of JICA re-entering into the picture is coming.

 

[Nilgiri]

Sindh Govt is the most corrupt Govt in Pakistan right now ….. I am sure China Govt also know that so they are not willing to invest ,, lol I think they don't want to give explanations to future Govts , China learned from Past Mistakes

Yes probably part of the analysis. There is also only so much China wants to hedge past what they are comfortable with already. They have retreated from similar MOU/unclear sort of stuff from other countries in the last couple years....because they also figure they need to secure more dry powder (rather than commit it and not have it at more immediate liquidity hand) depending how the bigger issue (for them) goes with US trade war.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Obviously it is multiple times more expensive.

Given that we have so many unemployed and young I have never understood why copying the Victorians in England can;t b done. Just hand out 10,000 shovels and start digging trench all day. Once done just cover it. Bingo. You have your underground like London did in 1850s.

 

[Nilgiri]

JICA has been offering to fund this project since Mush era.... this is not ground breaking news that you are disseminating... However, PPP has been in government in Sindh for the last 12 years and negotiations with JICA have broken down time and again and most people believe it because the PPP government is demanding bribe and kickbacks because of which JICA back out since they have a reputation to defend.

Last year when the door on JICA funding completely shut the PPP government lobbied to have the KCR project included in CPEC, it was put in preliminarily but since it is not a national level project it is way down in the list of "priority projects" hence maybe that is why the news of JICA re-entering into the picture is coming.

Yep, JICA is really gold standard with their terms for these things. If they backed out earlier, 100% guarantee something foul was being asked for.

 

[Syed1.]

Given that we have so many unemployed and young I have never understood why copying the Victorians in England can;t b done. Just hand out 10,000 shovels and start digging trench all day. Once done just cover it. Bingo. You have your underground like London did in 1850s.

1850 Brits had better governance than 2019 Pakistanis.

 

[Indus Pakistan]

Why?

Arrest every mullah. Shut every madaris. Then press gang 100,000 of them with showels in hand while reciting the Quran to start digging. In less then one year you will have your subway in Karachi and 100,000 fit Hifiz-e-Qurans. That not a good idea?

Like this. Marching to work with showels. Dig. Dig, Dig.

 

[Canuck786]

Yep, JICA is really gold standard with their terms for these things. If they backed out earlier, 100% guarantee something foul was being asked for.

If I recall correctly it was abandoned because of inability as well as vested interests of local politicians to remove encroachments on the track, most of which were finally removed on Supreme Court's orders last year. There is still a couple of kilometers that remain encroached till date and would need to be addressed in order to proceed.

 

[Nilgiri]

@Indus Pakistan , really enjoyed those pics....the open pit method was actually used for the kolkata metro system iirc (since india didnt have the funds or knowhow back then for TBM).

But I am wondering is it relevant to KCR here? As far as I know isnt KCR a surface commuter rail kind of system when in operation? So wouldn't this project mainly be re-establishing the existing surface infra (likely encroached on...or have parts also been officially sold?), upgrading it etc?...or is there actual downtown underground stuff involved too?