The Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) closed down over 10 years ago. The last train that ran covered the 32-km distance from the city’s eastern suburbs to the central station in two hours earning a total fare of just Rs8,000. Little else needs to be said to explain the cause of its closure............................................
In a quarter century of its stumbling operations the KCR burdened the country’s railways with huge losses while providing little relief to commuters. Nevertheless, its refurbishment and revival remained on the books of planners, though the focus shifted chiefly to tram-cum-bus transit corridors — seven of them — running through the conurbation of colonies and shanties that Karachi had become since independence.
In 20 years the corridor scheme attracted no investor. The government didn’t pursue it either. The chief deterrence was its huge cost and environmental hazards. The forsaken circular railway plan was dusted off the shelf when the Japanese government showed interest. It has since agreed to finance it fully after years of painstaking study by Japanese experts.
The Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) approved the project recently, subject to a second and more careful look at its staggering cost of Rs128.5bn.
For the people of Karachi, the project is a surprise gift — but from the people of Japan, not from the MQM or the ANP as their leaders have claimed. It is not usual for a project of this size, which also has a commercial dimension to it, to be financed entirely by a foreign government or agency, and that too at a token rate of interest. The three tiers of government — federal, provincial and district — will now have only administrative costs to fight over, if they must, which is barely five per cent of the capital investment.
The real test lies in the speedy and honest implementation of the project. And that is where doubts take hold.
Hardly ever has a project of this size and complexity been completed on schedule and within the estimated cost. Close at hand is the example of the much smaller and simpler Lyari Expressway. It was to be completed in two years. It is now in its sixth year and perhaps will take two more.
The rate of commission — another name for embezzlement — is now said to be 30 per cent of the cost. Gone are the benign days of the legendary and ‘legitimate’ 10 per cent. It is no longer confined to bribery or waste. Political establishments and homesteads, here and abroad, jaunts and feasts of leaders and hangers-on all have to be taken care of.
Pakistan’s political parties have no endowments, nor do their members pay a large fee. Slush funds are also needed, on occasion, to bring down a government. Money cannot be stolen from the treasury all the time.
Since the KCR is the best and, perhaps, the last chance for Karachi to have a mass transit system, maybe the officials and contractors employed on the project can be persuaded to take a vow not to siphon off funds and to strive to complete the work within the stipulated period of four years.
Whether just one or all three levels of government are partners in the venture is immaterial. What matters is that the professionals executing the project should not be in any way beholden to any government, nor should they be politicians’ nominees. One has to be wary on this count when embezzlement is alleged even in the building of houses for the homeless of Balakot affected by the 2005 earthquake. No wonder foreign agencies now have second thoughts about the pledges they made to help the families displaced by extremist violence in Swat.
Fast electric trains unhampered by level crossings going full circle every six minutes on a 43-km dual track would surely make transit corridors unnecessary, especially after branch lines are added in the second phase. Enlarging and modernising the city’s bus fleet for feeder routes, however, would remain a necessity.
Karachi’s bus fleet is obsolete, mechanically unfit, polluting and wholly inadequate. It has been almost three years since Ecnec approved a scheme for 8,000 CNG buses for major cities (Karachi’s indicated share was 5,000), with a 25 per cent subsidy. Not one bus has come on the road so far. It was left to Karachi’s confident nazim to stake municipal money, but on no more than 50 buses. That is a drop in the ocean but has indeed made travel fast and economical on the routes on which these buses ply.
The KCR could fail if buses are not available at all stations where the trains halt to carry passengers to their onward destinations. Finally and crucially, the circular railway, however speedy, punctual or economical, would not be financially viable if it were to rely entirely on the fares commuters can afford to pay or are willing to pay.
City mass transport — rail or bus — all over the world is subsidised. It is viewed as a social function of the government and not a business venture. The economic gains are invisible but many. Getting to work on time is just one of them.
The KCR will be in trouble and bus transport will continue to deteriorate if the government does not find a way to subsidise both. Secondly, Pakistan, like the rest of the world, must convince the private sector to manage transport services while the government invests in infrastructure.
To encourage bus service, the price of vehicles can be subsidised and fares adjusted from time to time to keep pace with operating costs. Shahbaz Sharif’s first government did this in Lahore with some measure of success.
Wage earners queuing for wheat flour and sugar and then jostling to get into a rickety bus may not bring a government down, but they will remain a threat to public order. This threat looms larger in Karachi than elsewhere for it is the only megalopolis in the world where public transport is run by a mafia. Where the state shirks responsibility mafias take over. In Karachi they provide a service which the state or civic authority should but does not.
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