Karachi: A financial mission of Japan International Cooperation Agency JICA would visit Karachi in near future to assess the aspects regarding of implementation of much awaited project of revival of Karachi Circular Railway KCR, JICA ODA Consultant Akitoshi Iio told Karachi Metropolitan Corporation KMC Administrator Muhammad Hussain Syed in a meeting here Tuesday.
Hussain Syed briefed the JICA experts on the important of this vital project, being started under financial and technical assistance from JAICA Japan would prove beneficial for the city. He said 0.7mn people would avail the facility of safe, comfortable and efficient journey through KCR. This project was supported by all the stakeholders including the federal and provincial government.
JICA Consultant during the meeting said he wanted to know about the opinion of stakeholders and reconfirm positive effects of KCR implementation in terms of quantitative and qualitative assessment to facilitate final appraisal of KCR Project.
Director General KMTC Rasheed Mughal, Senior Director Transport & Communication Muhammad Ather, Director Land Najmuz Zaman, Director Planning & Coordination KMTC Mirza Anwer Baig and other officers were also present.
Administrator offered Akitoshi to visit the locations of Karachi Circular Railway so that the scope of this project could be ascertained. He said the central command and control system in Karachi would be used to monitor the KCR.
Later, Akitoshi Iio paid a visit to the Central Command & Control Centre in Civic Centre and monitored the city through video surveillance system.
This may be noted that the KCR has a total route length of 43.24km out of which 15.68km is on ground, 23.86km elevated and 2.28km in trench with a 1.42km bridge in between. The total number of stations would be 24 including 10 on ground, 12 elevated and 2 trench stations. The system would use electric powered trains.
Administrator Karachi said for the purpose of providing electricity to KCR, various power generation projects were being worked out including the power generating from compressed garbage and the municipal waste, besides KESC had also announced willingness for supplying electricity to this project.
He said the project will be run by Karachi Urban Transport Corporation as a public private partnership project under technical assistance from JICA.
The Governing Body of KUTC would consist of the representative from Pakistan Railway, Sindh Government and KMC on the basis of their share in this project which is 60, 25 and 15 percent, respectively.
Administrator said the city of Karachi has 7 industrial zones which were playing important role in the national economy. This project would provide more job opportunities to people and their standard of life would rise with the additional income.
He thanked JICA and Japan Government and said that KCR service would make the travelling between the suburban and the central commercial and industrial areas easy and comfortable for citizens by providing great convenience to people residing around the KCR route.
The JICA Advisor expressed satisfactions over the information he received during the meeting and said that he hope this project would complete soon and play key role in the progress and development of Karachi.
He said a financial assessment mission would also soon visit Karachi for implementation of this project.