Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, while approving Rs 45 million for preparing the feasibility of Karachi Circular Railways (KCR), has ordered removal of encroachment from the route so that work could start on the project through CPEC.

This order he issued today while presiding over a meeting on KCR at the New Secretariat. The meeting was attended by Minister Transport Syed Nasir Shah, ACS (Dev) M. Waseem, Secretary Transport Taha Farooqi, Secretary Finance Hassan Naqvi, DS Railways Nisar Memnon and others.

Briefing the Chief Minister, Provincial Minister for Transport, Nasir Shah said that the KCR project has total length of 43 kilometers of which 13.43 kilometers is on railways main line and 29.69 km on the KCR loop. He added that he had personally visited the entire KCR route yesterday and found encroachments along its route.

DS Railways Karachi Nisar Memon briefing the Chief Minister on encroachments said that the total land required for the KCR project is 360 acres, of which 260 acres is of Pakistan Railways land and 100 is on the main line.

He added that the area under encroachment is 67, including 47 acres on the KCR loop and 20 acres on main line. He added that 4,653 houses have been constructed on the encroached land and 2,997 are other establishments. He said around 20 percent of the right of way of KCR is under encroachment. The project can only be implemented if the encroachments are removed from its route.

Giving details of the encroachments on the KCR Loop Section he said that at Wazir Mansion 29.28 acres of KCR are under encroachment, Wazir Mansion to Baldia 0.82 acres, near Orangi Nala 1.91 acres, Oragni to Nazimabad 1.44 acres, Nazimabad-Liaquatabad 2.36, Liaquatabad to Gilani 3.16 acres, Gilani to Urdu College 2.05, Urdu College to University 4.16 acres and from University to Depot Hill 0.91 acres are encroached upon.