SC sets deadline for railway projects completion

ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Wednesday directed the government for completing the ML-1 Railway project in two years and the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) in three months.

The court remarked there would be dire consequences if the timeline given for the completion of the railway projects was not followed strictly. A three-member bench of the apex court headed by Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed and comprising Justice Ijazl-ul-Ahsan and Justice Sajjad Ali Shah heard the case pertaining to the losses incurred by Pakistan Railways.

During the course of the proceedings, Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid said 85 per cent of the track for KCR had been cleared, adding the government carried out an operation and razed few buildings to the ground.

He assured the court that work was being done to make KCR functional again. He added he was grateful to the court as a lot of work had been done in the past 12 days.

Chief Justice Ahmed said the KCR was a project for the people and not one individual, as the court wanted to bring good to the people. He asked the minister not to hand over the KCR project to the Sindh province as it would end up like the Karachi transport system.

He also asked Rashid why the KCR was made part of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, to which he replied the government included it in the CPEC owing to the country’s financial situation.

The chief justice observed if the railways sells off some of its land it would be able to fix its own financial situation. Rashid responded that selling a single property from Karachi will fix the railway’s financial system but the court had put a stay on selling these properties.

Planning Minister Asad Umar said completing the project in three months would not be possible, to which Justice Ahmed told him he was saying this could not be done and the project would face delays. He said the people had been waiting for it to be finished and asked Rashid when would he cut the ribbon for the KCR project.

Umar said the country’s financial situation was not too well at the moment, adding the real issue was that a large amount of funding was required for the project. The chief justice said the Japanese people had been asking the government over and over again about this project.

Umar responded the Sindh government would have to submit an answer for that. Upon this, the bench summoned a reply on the matter from the Sindh government in the next hearing. The planning minister also pleaded the court for directions to the Sindh government for ensuring action on the KCR project. Addressing Umar, the Chief Justice said he was not doing anything for railways.

Umar said his ministry would present the 1,880 kilometre-long ML-1 project in front of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) on March 10, adding the project would also be approved by Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) on April 12.

Justice Ahmed asked about the timeline for the completion of the project, to which Rashid responded that the project would be finished in five years.

The hearing of the case pertaining to losses incurred by railways was adjourned for two months, while the hearing on KCR was adjourned until February 21. The next hearing about KCR would be held at the Supreme Court’s Karachi Registry, where the railways minister and the Sindh chief secretary have been summoned.