KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has said that the provincial government was ready to launch Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) for which Pakistan Railways had to hand over Right of Way (ROW) to Sindh government within next 15 days.
This he said on Wednesday while presiding over a meeting here at CM House. The meeting was attended by Minister Local Government Saeed Ghani, Advisor to CM Murtaza Wahab, Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, Home Secretary Kazi Kabir, Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Shahlwani, Secretary Local Government Khalid Hyder Shah, MD Water Board Asadullah, DG KDA, DG SBCA and representatives of Transport department.
The chief minister said that it was committed to launch KCR project for which he had been holding meetings in China and Islamabad and got it approved in the CPEC-related JCC meeting. Now, the federal government has to approve the project as it feasibility study has already been done and that it has to give its sovereign guarantee.
Shah directed the Transport department to write a letter to the railway authorities with the request to remove encroachment from the ROW and transfer the same to the provincial government so that international tenders could be invited to start the project.
The meeting decided that notice may be issued to the illegal allottees of Kidney Hill and Hill park areas for appearing before the Supreme Court of Pakistan, Karachi.
Commissioner Karachi told the chief minister that hockey ground of YMC has been restored and now hockey was being played there.
The chief minister directed Commissioner Karachi to remove encroachment from the footpaths contracted around the Metropole Hotel. The commissioner said that he has cleared some portions of the footbaths and the portion of Village restaurant at the corner of the Metropole Hotel would be cleared within next 24 hours. – NNI