Efforts afoot to get Karachi Circular Railway included in CPEC

KARACHI: The Sindh government has begun efforts to get Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) and Keti Bandar projects included in China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project, ARY News reported.

Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah will write to Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif to seek his favor to get KCR and Keti Bandar included in CPEC project. This was decided here in a meeting chaired by the CM today. The meeting mulled over providing transport facilities to Karachiites.

Additional chief secretary development, principal secretary, finance secretary and secretary energy were also present on this occasion among others.

Murad is set to meet the PM and visit China to lobby in this regard as well. He will participate in a meeting of joint coordination committee of CPEC in January next year.

KCR is a defunct inter-regional transport project which connects several commercial and industrial areas of the metropolis. The provincial and federal governments have long been making claims to revive KCR; however no ground work has been carried out for over a decade because of different reasons including relocation of people residing along the proposed railway line.

KCR began regular passenger service in 1969, however could not survive and shutdown in 1999 because of gross mismanagement.

Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) has withdrawn its offer to construct the project on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis after it took long to the Sindh government to meet JICA’s legal demands.

While, in January the following year, China had shown interest in reviving Keti Bandar project on BOT basis.

“We are ready to lay a railway line from Thar coal field to Keti Bandar to transport coal,” China-Pakistan Association President Sha Zukang had said in a meeting with the then CM Sindh.