From Zeeshan Mirza
KARACHI: Pakistan and China on Thursday agreed to start the Mainline-1 (ML-1) railway from Karachi to Peshawar and the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project. Pakistan Railway’s KCR project will be started under China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) instead of Public Private Partnership mode.
Talking to the media on Thursday Federal Minister for Planning, Development, and Special Initiatives Ahsan Iqbal said the two sides had achieved consensus during the 11th meeting of the Joint Cooperation Committee (JCC) on CPEC held virtually, on major things including the signing of agreements on ML-1 and KCR through institutional formalities.
Earlier the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) had cleared the Karachi Circular Railway Project (KCR) worth Rs. 292.389 billion.
The project envisages the construction of 44 kilometers long and dedicated track starting from Drigh Road and passing through different areas including Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Federal B Area, Liaquatabad, North Nazimabad, Nazimabad, Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE), and Lyari.
The scope of work includes the construction of horizontal and vertical curvature, roadway/railway cross-section elements, ramp gradients, and layout of structures concerning the alignment. The scope of work also includes construction stations, provision of drivers, informatory, regulatory, and warning signs, passenger facilitation signs along with allied facilities, and route alignment of the KCR.
The project is a part of an overall scheme for the improvement of transport infrastructure including road network, provision of public transport/mass transit facilities, and traffic management in Karachi.
The development of KCR as a modern urban railway will add to the existing public transport facilities in Karachi which have fallen short to meet the incremental demand over the last few decades due to the non-availability of modern mass transit facilities and declining supply of large buses while the city continues to expand in population and urban area.
The main objective of the project is to provide reliable, safe, and environmentally friendly public transport to the metropolitan city of Karachi. The project entails the construction of a dual-track urban rail mass transit system expected to be constructed in four years.
The project is expected to serve 457,000 passengers every day which is expected to rise to 1 million per day in the future. The project will deploy the use of electric trains and will be operational for seven days a week and 17 hours a day. Thirty stations would be constructed under the project along the corridor covering the densely populated areas of the city.
