Karachi Circular Railway to partially resume from next week: PR

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Railways on Monday announced to partially resume Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) from November 16 in phases, ARY News reported.

According to a railway spokesperson, Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) is being restored in phases from November 16. Initially, KCR will run from Pipri to Landhi and Orangi town.

Sharing details of schedule, the spokesperson said that eight trains would run between Pipri to Orangi, while the train departure times will be 7 -10 am and 1-4 pm.

He further said that the fare for a full journey of 60 km would be Rs 50.

The development came hours after the Supreme Court (SC) issued a show-cause notice to the chief secretary (CS) Sindh and the secretary Pakistan Railways (PR) over failure to remove encroachment from the track of Karachi Circular Railways (KCR).

On February 21, the Supreme Court had ordered to make Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) operational within six months.

KCR project

According to Pakistan Railways, the Karachi Circular Railway project will be completed in three phases. The length of the KCR project was 43.13km, including 14.95km on the ground and 28.18km elevated. It would have 24 stations and its per-day ridership would be around 550,000.

The railway officials said that in the first phase, the KCR line from Karachi City Station to Orangi Town would become operational and 32 trains will operate on the track. Its per-day ridership would be around 16,000, while the restoration of the first phase will cost Rs1.25 billion.

The second phase of KCR will cost Rs 8.70 billion, whereas, the third phase would be completed under a public-private partnership.

It may be noted that FWO will construct underpasses and flyovers on KCR tracks, whereas, the security wall on all the routes will be constructed by the provincial transport department. It is noteworthy to mention here that the Sindh government had allocated Rs5 billion funds for the construction of the underpasses and flyovers.

Last month, the federal and Sindh governments had agreed to run local trains on a 12-kilometer track in Karachi on a trial basis in the next two months.