Daily Times

After its inception, the KUTC had held several meetings with missions of the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA) for the KCR project. During these meetings, a loan agreement was also signed between the two parties. In August 2012, JICA agreed to Rs260 billion ($2.5 billion) loan with the condition that it would oversee rebuilding and refurbishment of the KCR project.

The plan called for upgrades and rebuilding of 50 kilometer long circular loop line which had to operate 24 trains facilitating 700,000 commuters, making three-minute stops at 23 stations. However, the plan wasn’t followed up.

Earlier, on March 24, 2003, then Minister of Railways Ghos Bakhsh Khan Mahar had floated tenders for the operation of the KCR in the private sector. This, too, wasn’t followed up.

On March 9, 2005, former Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz inaugurated the first phase of KCR and vowed to finish it in three phases, pledging Rs 3.5 billion for the project. The next two phases could never get started.

On April 30, 2010, then Minister of Railways Ghulam Ahmad Bilour claimed that construction work would begin in 2010. Stage I and II of project would commence simultaneously and would be completed within three-years and open to public by 2014, he maintained, but again no progress was made.

On April 9, 2012 then KUTC managing director Aijaz Hussain Khilji announced that construction work would begin in June 2013 and it would be completed by June 2017. But this claim also did not materialise.

On August 8, 2012, KMC administrator Muhammad Hussain Syed vowed that work on KCR project would be resumed by September 2013, but this was another futile promise. In 2016, the provincial government and the PR formed a working group to fulfill legal requirements to hand over administrative control of KUTC and right of way of tracks of KCR to the provincial government.

In May 2017, the federal government approved Rs 27.9 billion for the restoration package. On September 30, 2017, then Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah claimed that the KCR project would begin on December 25, 2017, and announced that the KCR route had been cleared of all encroachments. He also said that the PR would be taken on board for acquisition of 360 acres of land for right of way.

On January 18, 2018, Murad Ali Shah once again claimed that work on the project would begin on March 23, 2018. He was reported in the press as saying, “I’m going to give good news to the people of Karachi.”

Published in Daily Times, August 3^rd 2018.