WHETHER the weather is
good or bad, every city needs a comfortable mass transit system. In bad
weather, like heat and cold waves or uninterrupted rains, like the ones we
recently had, the need for transport is felt more acutely. From that point of
view Karachi is a most unfortunate city.
All governments, and I
mean all, have failed to give the country’s largest city a mass and rapid
transport system its people need. The abandonment of the Karachi Circular
Railway was a tragedy. Built during the Ayub regime, the KCR had a limited
utility, but it could have been expanded to turn into a mode of mass transit
system of a city that was expanding.
Since its abandonment,
countless schemes have been made and feasibilities studies involving foreign
parties prepared. In one case, even a foundation stone was laid, but the plan
remains still-born.
The plans included two
or three elevated pathways on which trains would run from Shershah to Karachi
Cantonment station and along Bunder Road, etc. But the scheme was never implemented.
About the KCR there have been made plans for its revival, nd the Japanese spent
perhaps a decade to examine it from every point of view. They pledged both
financial and technical help. All they demanded was that encroachments on KCR
land be removed. That was never done, and it could not be done given the scale
of encroachments by individuals and parties.
Since April last year
there has been a drive against encroachments, not just on the KCR land but
elsewhere. Countless people have been rendered homeless, but there is no
evidence that this will lead to a revival of the KCR. In fact, federal railway
minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmad once said the KCR plan had not been finalised.
This being the position one wanders how long this city will live without a modern
transport system while the population continues to increase.
Regrettably, while we
continue to play without our plans and schemes, many third world cities have
developed enviable transport systems. Cities like Hong Kong, Singapore,
Malaysia, Delhi, Tehran and Cairo have managed to have fast and comfortable
systems, but we are still ‘planning’. The truth is that no provincial
government had the will to concentrate on a mass transit scheme for Karachi and
make it a going concern. The KCR, it seems, will remain a project.
Rafiq Dawood
Karachi
Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2020
Tags:
KCR