Railways minister urges professionalism in tackling KCR

Says Karachi-Peshawar mainline should be part of feasibility study

LAHORE: Pakistan Railways (PR) Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique said on Saturday that no political pressure will be tolerated regarding the completion of the Karachi Circular Railway project.

He was addressing a meeting between the PR administration and a delegation of the Sindh government on Karachi Circular Railways (KCR), held at the Railways Headquarters.  “We are ready to lay the foundation stone of the KCR while standing shoulder-to-shoulder with Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah, but seriousness and sincerity should be shown from both sides,” he said.



The minister said that the KCR was a historic and important project which should have been completed 30 years ago.

“We do not work under political pressure; we work on the recommendations of professionals, through which we have revived a destroyed railways,” he added. “We are ready to cooperate on the KCR project but do not want to cause any loss to the nation.”

The minister suggested that up gradation of Karachi-Peshawar mainline under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) should be part of feasibility of the KCR and urged the consultants to create unanimity on the design under the supervision of Chinese experts.

He also directed PR to cooperate on KCR for making it a profitable department by running it on a commercial basis. Rafique said that he personally visited former Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and discussed the KCR issue and had written several letters to the Sindh government but no response had been received.

“It is not my job to remove encroachments from the route of the KCR,” he lamented. The minister said that he talked to the Sindh Chief Minister and ‘liked him personally even though he was member of the Pakistan People’s Party’.

“We are ready to cooperate on the KCR, but it was troublesome that no minister or secretary-level officer from Sindh was present in the meeting, whereas the top level administration of the Railways including the federal minister and CEO were present,” he deplored.



“Railways is a federal institution which does not enjoy holidays on Saturday and we are ready to forego the holiday of Sunday for the Sindh delegation,” he chided, adding that “leave the politics aside and let us complete our professional matters.”

The minister said that Karachi could only be freed from containers and trailers, when freight transportation would pass through Railways via Mainline-1 after its up gradation.

“Only KCR will not resolve the issues of the city, upgradation of ML-1 is also important but unfortunately it is not included in the feasibility report of the KCR,” he added.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 19^th, 2017.

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