Thus far, all we have is talk, and we have been at this point many times over the last 20 years. PHOTO: FILE
The issue of the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) has once again being given a run around the track. This latest examination of the possibilities of resuscitating the KCR project may well be timely but is no more likely to come to fruition than any of the previous attempts to get the project off the drawing board and into operation. Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafiq assured the Sindh government of his full cooperation in the implementation of the project which is a welcome development, especially for Karachi’s harried commuters. Political parties are being consulted as a part of the preparation for the project and the issue of encroachments has been broached, which is perhaps, the biggest single impediment to its implementation. There are powerful vested interests behind many of the encroachments, some of which have been in place for decades and are ‘owned’ by political parties, which are unlikely to be happy to give up their valuable properties without something of a fight.
The inevitable committee has been formed with representation from the federal and provincial governments and it is to start its work at an undefined date but ‘soon’. Funding the project is never going to be easy, but the Japanese in the form of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has requested a waiver of provincial levies, and the chief minister of Sindh has said that the matter will be discussed at the next meeting of the Sindh cabinet. Thus far, all we have is talk, and we have been at this point many times over the last 20 years. The JICA is promising a soft loan of Rs250 billion for the project, which will partly be elevated, partly on the surface and the smallest section will be tunneled. It is a grand vision, but turning it from vision to concrete reality is going to need a level of political commitment and cooperation that has been absent in the past, despite which we wish the project well.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 24th, 2013.
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