Rawalpindi-Islamabad Mass Transit System: Feasibility Study on Rs 70 million project to Start Soon

ISLAMABAD (March 13 2009): Work on the feasibility study of Rapid Mass Transit System (RMTS) between Rawalpindi and Islamabad worth Rs 70 million will start within a fortnight, agreement for which is being signed by the Capital Development Authority (CDA), Rejlers and National Engineering Services Pakistan (Nespak), a senior CDA official told Business Recorder here on Thursday.

"The project approved in June 2008 is not on schedule, therefore, we are making all our efforts to start work on it as soon as possible", said the official. After approval of the project last year, the firms had to start the feasibility study on July 25, 2008 to be completed within eight months.The officials said that earlier the change in the management and now the law and order situation in the country were the major reason behind the delay in initiation of the project.

A high level meeting, chaired CDA Chairmn by Tariq Mahmood Khan, was held on Thursday to review the outline of feasibility study of RMTS.The meeting was also attended by member, CDA Planning and Design Syed Tanvir Bukhari, Consultant, Engineering, Lieutenant Colonel Arshad Naseem (Retd), Director, Traffic Engineering, Azam Khan Lodhi, and officers of other concerned departments. The Director, Traffic Engineering, briefed the CDA Chairman about the initiation of feasibility report of Rapid Mass Transit System.

Tariq Mahmood Khan was informed that tenders had been floated in the international media for establishment of rapid mass transit system of international standard, in response to which five firms had submitted their bids to carry out feasibility study. Rejlers was selected based on technical experience and lowest financial cost of the bid after detailed scrutiny.The meeting was informed that PC-II of the project had been approved and eight months of duration would be required to complete the feasibility study. The CDA and Rejlers are expected to reach an agreement within next 10 days.

The CDA Chairman said that the project of Rapid Mass Transit System was of the great worth, which must be initiated earlier. He directed the concerned department to remove hurdles in the way of this project.The citizens of the twin cities desperately need the facility of Rapid Mass Transit System of international standard. In the meantime, alternative steps would be taken to meet the transport needs of the citizens of Islamabad and Rawalpindi, he added.

He urged the Planning Wing to plan and demarcate places for the transport stations; detailed recommendations on financial and administrative affairs of such projects should be submitted to the CDA board for its approval. He also directed to invite application for bus service in the twin cities before the completion of Rapid Mass Transit System.Besides, public-private partnership, if necessary, the CDA may also hold the administrative control of bus service, the CDA Chairman added.

He said CDA was utilising its available resources for initiating the mega projects to facilitate the citizens of the Federal capital.

Developments on LRMTS Project

The LRMTS is back again in the News with Governor Punjab Salman Taseer initiatives to start this Project. I hope he would be successful in this as Shahbaz Sharif was against this wonderful project ( I dont know why) which I think s not understandable as he is the one who is in the favor of modern transportation.

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* Meeting to review ADP decides to restart three mega projects

* Meeting told former government only started 1,500 projects out of a total of 3,000

LAHORE: Suspension of development work by the former government despite substantial technical progress is unjustified, Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer said on Wednesday.

Taseer was presiding over a meeting to review the Annual Development Programme (ADP) of the province at the Planning and Development Board. He said public welfare projects were important to attract foreign investment upon their completion.Projects: The meeting decided to re-launch three mega projects for public welfare, including the Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System, the Lahore-Sialkot-Kharian Motorway, and an expressway on both flanks of Nullah Lai in Rawalpindi.The meeting was told that the Lahore Rapid Mass Transit System would cost the government Rs 40 billion and would provide an elevated train system from Shahdara to Ghazi Road through Ravi Road, Lower Mall and Ferozepur Road.Taseer issued orders to resume the project of construction of motorway from Lahore to Kharian.

The 157-kilometre road would cost the government Rs 51 billion and would start from the Allama Iqbal International Airport.He approved the appointment of prominent construction engineer, Zubair Imran Khawaja, as the Lahore-Kharian Motorway project director. The meeting was told the project would be completed in three phases during the next four years. The three phases would cost Rs 51 billion.

The meeting also decided to restart the project of construction of expressway in Rawalpindi at a cost of Rs 17 billion. The government was told that the work of alignment of southern and northern loop of Lahore Ring Road was being completed expeditiously. Former government: The meeting was informed that the previous government only started 1,500 development projects out of a total of 3,000 under the Annual Development Programme. The total budget for the programme was Rs 160 billion and only Rs 38 billion had been spent on development projects by the former government.

The governor issued instructions to improve the periodic monitoring mechanism and the introduction of third-party validation system to ensure high quality construction work. He also approved an increase in budget for maintenance and repair of provincial highways from Rs 200 million to Rs 3 billion. staff report

Proposed KCR Is About To Be Materialized

KARACHI: Some changes are being made to the design of the Karachi Circular Railway by significantly increasing the elevated portion of the tract, hiking the cost of the much-delayed project by more than one third of a billion dollars, it emerged on Friday.

According to sources, roughly 10 per cent of the nearly 50 kilometres of the KCR tracks were to be elevated to negotiate some 22 level crossings under the earlier plans, but now, with the road network being extensively expanded, almost 40 to 50 per cent of the track will be elevated.

They said that between 20 and 25 kilometres of the elevated portion of the dual railway track would pass through densely populated areas including Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Gulshan-i-Iqbal, Nazimabad, SITE and Baldia.

They added that the cost of the project was earlier estimated at around $872 million, but it was now expected to be somewhere between $1.1 billion and $1.25 billion.

The sources said that a team from the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), which is funding the project, was scheduled to come to the country in the next few weeks to meet the Karachi Urban Transport Company (KUTC) and other top officials of the country in this regard.
The sources said that a Japanese development loan was being given at a highly subsidised rate of 0.2 per cent mark-up for the project. The loan was returnable within 40 years, with an initial 10 year grace period, they added.

The sources said that under the project, air-conditioned trains running at between 45 and 60 kilometres per hour would be operating between 5am and midnight, with a gap of around four minutes between trains. There would be approximately 30 stations, with each stop lasting between 40 seconds and one minute.

They said that some 250 trains powered by electricity, to be obtained from dedicated power generation stations, would be carrying approximately a million passengers a day, with each train having a capacity of approximately 1,700 passengers paying a distance-based fare ranging between Rs7.50 and Rs25. The fares were chosen in order to make the system competitive with the current road-based public transport fares.

The sources said that the 40-kilometre-long Delhi Metro system’s accounts were being used for reference when it came to this project. The Delhi Metro was constructed using a foreign loan of $2.78 billion, which was obtained at a comparatively higher mark-up rate of over 1 per cent.
They said the Delhi system was being used by over 0.6 million commuters every day, and after returning its short-term and long-term loan commitments and all other expenses, it earned a profit of over Rs2.5 billion during the year 2007.

Access to the stations on the KCR would be limited, with commuters only allowed to board trains if they had smart cards or e-tickets, with planners saying this would eliminate the ‘free rider’ problem. All of the tracks would be fenced so that people living along the railway lines were not accidentally run over by the fast-moving trains, said the sources.

At present, a large number of people are killed every year while crossing over unfenced railway tracks — on both sides of which numerous encroachments, katchi abadis and slums have mushroomed in the city.

The sources said that Karachi commuters, who are held hostage to the exploitive transport mafia that is aided by the corrupt and inefficient administration, would switch over to the comparatively quicker KCR trains — which will complete the entire 50-kilometre distance in around 60 to 70 minutes — if the fare structure was prepared realistically and was within the reach of commuters.

They said that Karachi was among the few mega cities which did not have its own railway-based mass transit system and commuters had to travel in buses and minibuses, the majority of which were poorly maintained and harmed the environment with poisonous emissions. They said commuters currently had to endure subhuman conditions, sometimes even sitting on the roofs of buses and vans.

Responding to Dawn’s queries, the KUTC managing director, Ejaz Khilji, said that some changes like enhancing the elevated portion of the track were being incorporated in the initial KCR project, which could enhance the cost slightly and a JICA team had visited the country a few days back. He said another JICA team was scheduled to visit the country in connection with the project in the second week of March.