Move to restart KCR

Move to restart KCR
Sindh cabinet on Thursday decided to consider restarting Karachi Circular Railway (KCR), keeping in view its importance to the commuters.This decision was made in a cabinet meeting chaired by Governor Azim Daudpota. Minister for Labour, Dewan Yousuf Farooq, underlined the need to formulate a feasibility to run the KCR and elicit involvement of the private sector on a BOT (build-own-transfer) basis. Participants of the meeting were of the view that despite an annual loss of Rs. 5 million to the Railway Ministry, the KRC should have been kept operational because it facilitated the people of Karachi.Sindh chief secretary supported the idea of keeping the circular railway functional and said that the land given to Railways on lease for the purpose could not be utilized for any other purpose. He underlined the need for some interim arrangement to run the circular railway.The cabinet formed a committee to prepare a comprehensive engineering and feasibility study and submit the report as early as possible for implementation and monitoring of the short term action plan. The committee will be headed by minister labour and Transport, and secretaries Labour and Finance departments, and commissioner Karachi will be its members.Jails’ conditions also came up for discussion with particular reference to foreign convicts and detainees. It was decided that the Home Department would send such cases to the Law Department to sort out these cases in consultation with the federal government.The cabinet also considered the construction of a pipeline to prevent oil tankers from coming to Karachi’s roads. Commissioner Karachi briefed the cabinet members on phasing out tankers from Karachi roads and their concentration at Keamari near the port. He said the requirement for Karachi was 400 tankers per day and for the rest of the country, it was 550 tankers per day.He also briefed the cabinet on the lack of safety measure at Keamari, lack of cooperation by concerned agencies in case of oil spillage and use of all city roads by the vehicles going upcountry.