Karachi Circular Railway annual revenue estimated at Rs 9.123 billion

[LahoreEstate]

ZAHEER ABBASI
ISLAMABAD (November 28 2009): The annual revenue earning of Karachi Circular Railway Project has been estimated as Rs 9.123 billion, with Rs 4.327 billion rail and Rs 4.8 billion non-rail revenue. Sources said that deducting Rs 2.881 billion operation and maintenance (O&M) cost, annual gross revenue surplus of KCR has been estimated at Rs 6.246 billion.

Out of Rs 6.246 billion, Rs 4 billion would be earmarked for repayment of loan, while depreciation cost has been estimated at Rs 1.6 billion. Rs 0.646 billion has been estimated as total net revenue surplus from the project. The proposed completion period of the project is three years, on commencement by the end of 2010, with $1.457 billion soft loan from Japan and $101.3 billion by Karachi Urban Transport Corporation (KUTC). The loan of donor agency, Jica, @ 0.2 percent mark-up would be repayable in 40 years, including 10 years grace period.

The study for the settlement of encroachers, in consultation with the Jica, is currently underway and is scheduled to be completed by the end of November 2009. About 300 acres land of the Board of Revenue, Sindh, at Jumma Goth, has been identified for the resettlement project of affectees/encroachers.

After completion, the resettlement plan study would be displayed at Jica website prior to WB appraisal mission visit to Pakistan. The loan agreement is expected to take place in July-August 2010 while it is likely that Jica would separately treat the study/design loan so that preliminary work could be completed. The route's preliminary alignment work would be completed by December 30, 2009 while the allocation of 300 acres of land by Board of Revenue

Government of Sindh for RRA is being taken up. They said that Sindh government and City District Government Karachi have signed Terms of References (ToRs) in October, 2009 of the transport study of City of Karachi with JICA. Priority Corridors-1&II will be identified on completion of study while financing and implementation of another study will be carried out for the Identified corridors-I and II by Jica.

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