Green signal for Karachi Circular Railway

[EagleEyes]

Green signal for Karachi Circular Railway

ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council decided on Thursday to revive the Karachi Circular Railway as a modern commuter system at a cost of Rs128.5 billion.

The committee suggested dualisation of railway tracks with the provision of two dedicated tracks along the main lines from Karachi City station to Drigh Road.

The system will have advanced technology to provide facilities of international standard to around 700,000 daily commuters.

The Karachi circular railway, which was set up in the mid-60s, was shut down in 1997 when Pakistan Railways suffered huge losses.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told newsmen that tenders would be floated for the project and a third-party valuation would be carried out to ensure transparency.

He rejected a perception that there were differences in the committee over the project and said that a study had been conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank.

Official sources said Japan’s ministry of economy, trade & industry would arrange funds for the project through the Japan Bank of International Cooperation.

They said Japan had commissioned a soft loan at a nominal mark-up with a long-term payback time and a grace period of 10 years.

The circular railway will be operated by a semi-autonomous body, the Karachi Urban Transport Corporation.

The Pakistan Railways will have 60 per cent share in the corporation, Sindh government 25 per cent and the City District Government of Karachi 15 per cent.

The Environmental Protection Agency has already approved the environmental impact assessment of the project.

A resettlement plan to clear encroachments from tracks and land of the circular railway has also been approved.

Karachi Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal welcomed the decision and said an operation would soon be launched to remove encroachments.

DAWN.COM | Metropolitan | Green signal for Karachi Circular Railway

 

[muse]

WebMassa:

What is this the 5th or 6th green signal? everytime they want to chill the karachi crowd, this circular, Maybe if we all say prayers to the Saudi and the international financial institutions, we may someday have a subway or undergroud or metro -- I remember karachi used to have those tram -- well, lets see what comes out of this.

 

[EagleEyes]

I really do hope there is a change, and that too with a standard of international one. There is a very good potential in this business. It can sky rocket just like the cell phones have in Pakistan. It really depends on how all this pans out.

 

[glomex]

DAWN.COM | Metropolitan | Green signal for Karachi Circular Railway


ISLAMABAD: The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council decided on Thursday to revive the Karachi Circular Railway as a modern commuter system at a cost of Rs128.5 billion.

The committee suggested dualisation of railway tracks with the provision of two dedicated tracks along the main lines from Karachi City station to Drigh Road.

The system will have advanced technology to provide facilities of international standard to around 700,000 daily commuters.

The Karachi circular railway, which was set up in the mid-60s, was shut down in 1997 when Pakistan Railways suffered huge losses.

Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira told newsmen that tenders would be floated for the project and a third-party valuation would be carried out to ensure transparency.

He rejected a perception that there were differences in the committee over the project and said that a study had been conducted by the Japan International Cooperation Agency and the World Bank.

Official sources said Japan’s ministry of economy, trade & industry would arrange funds for the project through the Japan Bank of International Cooperation.

They said Japan had commissioned a soft loan at a nominal mark-up with a long-term payback time and a grace period of 10 years.

The circular railway will be operated by a semi-autonomous body, the Karachi Urban Transport Corporation.

The Pakistan Railways will have 60 per cent share in the corporation, Sindh government 25 per cent and the City District Government of Karachi 15 per cent.

The Environmental Protection Agency has already approved the environmental impact assessment of the project.

A resettlement plan to clear encroachments from tracks and land of the circular railway has also been approved.

Karachi Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal welcomed the decision and said an operation would soon be launched to remove encroachments.

 

[Omar1984]

Round and round on train
​

The Karachi Circular Railway project may need a hefty sum to be rebuilt according to present day needs but it certainly provides a solution to many of Karachi’s traffic issues

By Shahid Husain

In 1966, when I was in school, one of my favourite pastimes was to have a ride on Karachi Circular Railway (KCR). My classmate Javed Iqbal and I would sneak from our homes, buy a 25 paisa ticket and ride on the wonderful train which traversed between Wazir Mansion in Khardar area up to Drigh Road. We made sure that we would not disembark from the train because in that case we had to buy another ticket. There was no ticket checker and we would ride on the train for hours, to and fro.

In those days film Akhri Station of Shabnam and Rahman was drawing huge crowds and we had named KCR after that film.

After a lapse of so many years KCR is again making headlines and 16-million citizens of Karachi are being told that it would be revived. According to newspaper reports the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council has decided to revive KCR as a "modern commuter system" at a cost of Rs 128.5 billion. The committee suggested that the railway tracks along the main lines should be made dual from Karachi City Station to Drigh Road and around 700,000 commuters would be able to travel by it on a daily basis.

Although the investment to revive KCR seems to be huge but given the fact that billions of rupees are being spent on constructing faulty overhead bridges and underpasses that transform into huge ponds during rains, KCR seems to be a rational option. More so because as many as 700,000 passengers would be able to avail the facility daily.

It may not be easy to translate the dream into reality because most of the railway land has been encroached upon on both sides of the tracks and it would be a formidable task to evacuate these people. The ruthlessness with which railways land has been encroached upon could be gauged from the fact that the famous Awami Markaz on Shahrah e Faisal and built by slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto with much fanfare is on railway’s land.

The KCR is a public transport facility established for the masses of Karachi in 1964 under the regulation and control of Pakistan Railways with a very low fare and efficient service. KCR was initially built forming a small circle using the main line as the base, taking off on the mainline at Drigh colony instead of Malir Cantt, according to a report prepared by Urban Resource Centre (URC), a non-government organisation headed by noted architect and planner Arif Hasan.

The railway planners initially aimed to use this line as by-pass for freight traffic and accordingly built a big goods train’s yard at Wazir Mansion. The KCR was, however, hardly used for freight traffic and was primarily used as commuter rail system, the report said.

According to a report, the KCR could serve as a better means of transport communication than the prevailing buses and minibus system that pollutes the city a lot less and is a faster and more convenient option. The following facts depict the importance of the KCR, according to the report:

*26 passengers can travel in a minibus, 100 in a double decker, 300 in an air-conditioned light rail bogey and 1800 can travel in a heavy rail. *Expansion rate of the city is from 100-750 sq km (i.e. 7.5 times), and public transport demands have multiplied 12 times.

*5646 public buses ply in the city and about 1700 more buses would be needed in the near future.

KCR is important because it passes through all major working areas of Karachi and also gives coverage to all important residential areas. It is situated at a distance of 1-1/2 kilometres from Schon Circle in Clifton and less than half kilometers from Boat Basin. It is a 5-12 minute walking distance from Pakistan Secretariat, the High Court, the KMC building, the City Court and Passport Office. It runs along I.I. Chundrigar Road and is located less than half a kilometre from Kharadar. It is half a kilometre from the Fish Harbour and about half a kilometre from Lea Market. Pathways to these locations and a shuttle to Lea Market is all that is required because a one-kilometre walk takes no more than 10 minutes, and this is universally accepted as appropriate for linking with a transport system, according to the report.

"There was no logic behind terminating the operations of KCR," Mohammad Nauman, an associate professor at the prestigious NED University of Engineering and Technology told TNS. "It catered to the needs of hundreds of thousands of commuters, especially the working class people who worked at Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) and industrial areas of Landhi."

He said in the mid-1970s, the country faced a textile crisis and a large number of industrial workers were laid off. Hence the number of passengers commuting through KCR dropped and became an excuse to terminate the services of KCR.

No efforts were made to preserve railway tracks and infrastructure thereafter by Pakistan Railways, government of Sindh and the City District Government Karachi and the vast swathes of land on both sides of the tracks were occupied. Even the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) and cantonment boards allowed construction around the reserved areas on both sides of the tracks. Near Wazir Mansion station one even found wooden planks of railways being openly sold by unscrupulous elements.

"If revived and extended, sub-urban railways running at grade level would also serve the workers of various cottage industrial areas of the city and upcoming industrial areas besides SITE and industrial centres of Landhi already covered by tracks," Nauman said.

He pointed out that it could cater to the needs of North Karachi up to Northern Bypass besides Sohrab Goth and Gulshan-e-Maymar and would serve commuters from North Karachi, New Karachi, Surjani Town etc. He said KCR could be developed along Sharea Faisal in the first phase and up to Education City in city’s suburbs in the second phase.

Obviously KCR would give a boost to economic activity and productivity and save precious time that is lost in commuting in Karachi. "Bus stops should be made at railway stations and could serve as the starting point," Nauman said.

The land prescribed on both sides of the track dates back to colonial era and given the fact that a major chunk of land has been occupied it could be reduced as has been done in Japan, Nauman said.

 

[Omar1984]

MoU signed for power supply to circular railway​

Thursday, October 07, 2010

KARACHI: The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) has signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with Karachi Urban Transport Corporation (KUTC) to explore the opportunities for providing electricity to Karachi Circular Railway.

The KCR will be revived as a modern commuter system to meet the transportation need of the citizens of the metropolis, a statement said.

The revival of KCR will ultimately change the face of Karachi. The total route length of the dual tracks on the Karachi Circular Railway Project Stage-I and Stage-II would be 43.12 kilometer (Karachi City to NIPA - 22.86 kilometers and NIPA to Karachi City Station and along mainline - 20.26 kilometers) with 24 stations. Trains will be operated at six minutes interval and will have a capacity of 942 to 1391 passengers, 18,840 to 30,602 passengers per hour and 0.69 million passengers per day.

The entire KCR project will be provided with electric traction infrastructure and modernised signaling and telecommunication system. The MoU will open dialogue between KESC and KUTC for the provision of about 120 megawatts for the project.

KESC is in the process of expanding its generation facilities in Karachi and intends to provide adequate supply of electric power to the KCR project upon its completion and operation in 2014.

Karachi Urban Transport Corporation is the implementation authority established to manage and execute the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project.

The project is to be funded by the government of Japan. The KCR stations will have latest facilities of computerised ticketing, automated ticket gates, vending machines and elevators.

Buses will be operated to and from KCR stations to facilitate passengers from different destination also. staff report

 

[StingRoy]

It has been more than a year since I have been hearing this news and still they are signing MoUs?
It is unfortunate to see the Pakistan Railways slowly on a decline overall. Some serious push needs to be made to keep it alive.

 

[Omar1984]

‘Sindh govt serious for revival of KCR project’ ​

KARACHI: Sindh government is serious for the revival of Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project with a Japanese company to finance more than 93 percent cost of the project on easy instalments. The KCR project costs $1.558 billion. Adviser to the Sindh Chief Minister on Information Sharmila Farooqi said this while talking to various delegations here on Monday. She said that the route of the project is more than 43 kilometres and 689,000 passengers are estimated to travel daily and the circular train would pass through 24 stations. The present democratic government is fully aware of Karachi’s traffic problems and the revival of KCR project was the need of the hour and it would help reduce the problems of traffic, she added. She said that the project would be completed till 2014 and all necessary measures had been taken in this regard and the project would benefit millions people in Karachi. She hoped that the revival of the project would also reduce pollution in the city and completion of the project would mean the completion of another promise, committed by the Pakistan People’s Party to the people. The adviser said that the project would be a gift to the people of Karachi and the people should cooperate with the government in its positive steps. staff report

 

[BelligerentPacifist]

While they were hearing these green signals, our parents had us and we grew up and had our own kids while still hearing of green signals!

I wonder several generations down the line our babies will be born with an additional instinct: knowing what green signal means.

 

[flameboard]

Hopefully they are electric so that more advanced trains can be introduced and pollution can be cut back.

 

[somebozo]

Good if they revive this its a shame that world largest city has very shabby transport system..one advice please install plenty security to keep some crazy sucide bomber away from boarding..otherwise nobody will travel on this!

 

[flameboard]

yeah security as well as a way to maintain order because many will try to get on for free.

 

[AZADPAKISTAN2009]

Well a subway station would have been well suited and appropriate

 

[nescafe]

Karachi: Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) - Page 10 - SkyscraperCity

this is from the pros of pakistani projects (non - military)

 

[Stumper]

Can someone guide here ..... posts says ~43KM by 2014.

For a city like Mumbai, this would have looked very very ambitious. But not sure about Karachi ... Will this time involve relocating the affected, Tendering , etc...Also has the project blureprint already approved or still to be finalized?

Can someone throw light here.