Karachi Circular Railway (Ext) Plan

Karachi Circular Railway (Ext) Plan

A revised version of Karachi Extended Circular Railway Plan designed by myself. KCR Project is thought to be completed by 2011 as promised by Mr. Mustafa Kamal (Mayor of Karachi)

Views of Mustafa Kamal: www.youtube.com/watch?v=NNt5BSlq4rc

Round and round on train
(Source: Jang News, Karachi, Pakistan)

The Karachi Circular Railway project may need a hefty sum to be rebuilt according to present day needs but it certainly provides a solution to many of Karachi’s traffic issues

Shahid Husain

In 1966, when I was in school, one of my favourite pastimes was to have a ride on Karachi Circular Railway (KCR). My classmate Javed Iqbal and I would sneak from our homes, buy a 25 paisa ticket and ride on the wonderful train which traversed between Wazir Mansion in Khardar area up to Drigh Road. We made sure that we would not disembark from the train because in that case we had to buy another ticket. There was no ticket checker and we would ride on the train for hours, to and fro.

In those days film Akhri Station of Shabnam and Rahman was drawing huge crowds and we had named KCR after that film.

After a lapse of so many years KCR is again making headlines and 16-million citizens of Karachi are being told that it would be revived. According to newspaper reports the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council has decided to revive KCR as a "modern commuter system" at a cost of Rs 128.5 billion. The committee suggested that the railway tracks along the main lines should be made dual from Karachi City Station to Drigh Road and around 700,000 commuters would be able to travel by it on a daily basis.

Although the investment to revive KCR seems to be huge but given the fact that billions of rupees are being spent on constructing faulty overhead bridges and underpasses that transform into huge ponds during rains, KCR seems to be a rational option. More so because as many as 700,000 passengers would be able to avail the facility daily.

It may not be easy to translate the dream into reality because most of the railway land has been encroached upon on both sides of the tracks and it would be a formidable task to evacuate these people. The ruthlessness with which railways land has been encroached upon could be gauged from the fact that the famous Awami Markaz on Shahrah e Faisal and built by slain Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto with much fanfare is on railway’s land.

The KCR is a public transport facility established for the masses of Karachi in 1964 under the regulation and control of Pakistan Railways with a very low fare and efficient service. KCR was initially built forming a small circle using the main line as the base, taking off on the mainline at Drigh colony instead of Malir Cantt, according to a report prepared by Urban Resource Centre (URC), a non-government organisation headed by noted architect and planner Arif Hasan.

The railway planners initially aimed to use this line as by-pass for freight traffic and accordingly built a big goods train’s yard at Wazir Mansion. The KCR was, however, hardly used for freight traffic and was primarily used as commuter rail system, the report said.

According to a report, the KCR could serve as a better means of transport communication than the prevailing buses and minibus system that pollutes the city a lot less and is a faster and more convenient option. The following facts depict the importance of the KCR, according to the report:

*26 passengers can travel in a minibus, 100 in a double decker, 300 in an air-conditioned light rail bogey and 1800 can travel in a heavy rail. *Expansion rate of the city is from 100-750 sq km (i.e. 7.5 times), and public transport demands have multiplied 12 times.

*5646 public buses ply in the city and about 1700 more buses would be needed in the near future.

KCR is important because it passes through all major working areas of Karachi and also gives coverage to all important residential areas. It is situated at a distance of 1-1/2 kilometres from Schon Circle in Clifton and less than half kilometers from Boat Basin. It is a 5-12 minute walking distance from Pakistan Secretariat, the High Court, the KMC building, the City Court and Passport Office. It runs along I.I. Chundrigar Road and is located less than half a kilometre from Kharadar. It is half a kilometre from the Fish Harbour and about half a kilometre from Lea Market. Pathways to these locations and a shuttle to Lea Market is all that is required because a one-kilometre walk takes no more than 10 minutes, and this is universally accepted as appropriate for linking with a transport system, according to the report.

"There was no logic behind terminating the operations of KCR," Mohammad Nauman, an associate professor at the prestigious NED University of Engineering and Technology told TNS. "It catered to the needs of hundreds of thousands of commuters, especially the working class people who worked at Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) and industrial areas of Landhi."

He said in the mid-1970s, the country faced a textile crisis and a large number of industrial workers were laid off. Hence the number of passengers commuting through KCR dropped and became an excuse to terminate the services of KCR.

No efforts were made to preserve railway tracks and infrastructure thereafter by Pakistan Railways, government of Sindh and the City District Government Karachi and the vast swathes of land on both sides of the tracks were occupied. Even the Karachi Building Control Authority (KBCA) and cantonment boards allowed construction around the reserved areas on both sides of the tracks. Near Wazir Mansion station one even found wooden planks of railways being openly sold by unscrupulous elements.

"If revived and extended, sub-urban railways running at grade level would also serve the workers of various cottage industrial areas of the city and upcoming industrial areas besides SITE and industrial centres of Landhi already covered by tracks," Nauman said.

He pointed out that it could cater to the needs of North Karachi up to Northern Bypass besides Sohrab Goth and Gulshan-e-Maymar and would serve commuters from North Karachi, New Karachi, Surjani Town etc. He said KCR could be developed along Sharea Faisal in the first phase and up to Education City in city’s suburbs in the second phase.

Obviously KCR would give a boost to economic activity and productivity and save precious time that is lost in commuting in Karachi. "Bus stops should be made at railway stations and could serve as the starting point," Nauman said.

The land prescribed on both sides of the track dates back to colonial era and given the fact that a major chunk of land has been occupied it could be reduced as has been done in Japan, Nauman said.