Between the cup and the lip

Karachi is perhaps one of the few mega cities of the world which has witnessed progress in reverse ie where civic facilities have gone on shrinking with the ever-increasing population instead of expanding.

Now the government has announced a plan for revival of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) that once served as a means of mass transit within the Karachi metropolitan area. The KCR began functioning in 1969 with 24 stations. It covered densely populated areas of the city. It stopped functioning in 1999 as a result of the machinations of the avaricious transport mafia. The mafia allegedly had full backing of the bureaucracy in bringing the KCR to a complete halt. The government justified discontinuation of the KCR operations on grounds of consistent losses. Before the closure of the KCR it was seen that a local train with six bogies was carrying not even six commuters. The vested interests did all this under a well-planned move. From time to time there has been talk of reviving the KCR. Because of the neglect of the KCR tracks and stations thousands of acres of KCR land were gradually encroached upon by unscrupulous elements where houses and markets sprang up. People have been living in houses built on encroached land for more than 20 years. Now that the KMC has decided to remove the encroachments hopes of KCR revival have been rekindled. But there is a big hitch as so far neither the federal government nor the provincial government has announced any resettlement plan for the affectees. Here political considerations might come into play and stall the revival move.

Besides facilitating the common people, for a mega city a railway mass transit system is a must also to reduce environmental pollution and road congestion which are increasing with the ubiquitous small cars and motorcycles on the road.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2018.

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