Revamping public transport in Karachi can double revenue generation: Hafiz Naeem


KARACHI, June 25 (SABAH): Jamaat e Islami (JI) Karachi Ameer Engr Hafiz Naeem ur Rehman has expressed gave concern over deteriorating situation of public transport in Karachi and hinted while proposing a solution that modernizing commuting system in the city could help in almost doubling revenue generation from the megalopolis.

Addressing a meeting at Idara Noor-e-Haq– the JI Karachi headquarters, here on Saturday, he said Karachi is a revenue generation engine of Pakistan and putting in place a proper public transport is like oiling this vital engine, which currently is  rustiing due to lack of care from the government.

He said presently Karachi is the only megacity of the world where the citizens do not have proper mass transit facilities. He said the city has pathetically low number of minibuses that stop plying early in evening and after 11 PM hardly any public transport bus is seen in the megacity and people, even families, are seen walking to reach their destinations as after hike in oil prices hailing taxi or rickshaw is going beyond reach of the common man.

On dozens of approved minibus routes in Karachi, not only a single minibus plies, as the private transport mafia runs the commuting system of Karachi at their sweet wish, he said.

The JI leader said closure of the Karachi Transport Corporation (KTC) was the biggest conspiracy to Karachi and Karachiites but no serious study on this subject is conducted as yet.

He said public transport is not just a civic service, but a great economic leverage also. Quoting a report of C40’s Cities Climate Leadership Group, he said that public transportation is more than just a way to move people around. It’s a vehicle for opportunity, equity, and a better quality of life.

Every $1 invested in public transport could generate $5 in economic returns while every $1 billion invested could create 50,000 jobs, he said quoting the report.

Hafiz Naeemur Rehman said the second crucial phase of Green Line RBT from Numaish to Tower seems left abondanded as work has practically been halted on it for the last many months. He said the Green Line would not give optimal results till it is connected to Tower area in the city. He said ideally the Green Line RBT should have stretched to Gulbai and Shershah to facilitate millions of the workers of SITE industrial area.

He said that now in the centre there is the coalition government led by Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif so the ignorance to the Green Line RBT, a flagship project of the PML-N, was just astonishing.

The Orange Line RBT of Sindh government still seems a distant dream, he said, adding that the Sindh transport department was marred with corruption and mismanagement. He said JI’s mayor Niamatullah Khan had given Karachi a good public transport system, introducing green buses, but nobody knows where these buses went after the city government of mayor Khan ended.

JI Karachi leader made it clear that the surface railway commuting system, the KCR, is the backbone of public transport system of Karachi and without it the commuting problems of Karachi would never end. He regretted that Bangladesh is now working on underground rail system in Dhaka, but in Karachi we are yet struggling just to revive our decades old KCR.

He said this shows the level of our priority attached to public transport system that is considered one of the key factors in boosting any urban economy. He said the study of public transport systems in the world shows that the top megacities of the world from London to Paris, from New York to Tokyo become great economic centers only after they turned around their commuting systems.

He demanded of the federal and provincial governments to pay a serious heed on the public transport sector in Karachi, complete the lingering second phase of the Green Line RBT, as well as, revival of the KCR on topmost priority to facilitate the citizens of the megacity.