Pakistan's congested port city and commercial capital, Karachi, is about to witness the take off of a project that promises to change the way the city functions, if it gets completed in the three years that the builders estimate it will take to achieve the first phase.

The Karachi Mass Transit Project, a dream for two decades for most Karachi-ites, may finally come true in 1998. The Indus Mass Transit Company (IMTC), a consortium headed by SNC Lavalin International of Canada will be signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the government of Pakistan by January 1998, under which an elevated light rail transit system will be built for the city.

In the first phase of the project, the light rail project will connect Merewether Tower, in the centre of the commercial district near the port area of the city to Karimabad, a bustling residential area, thirteen kilometres north.

The project bears special significance for the people of Karachi. In March 1997, the last buses of the state-owned Karachi Transport Corporation were pulled off the roads after incurring millions in losses over the years, thanks to corruption and theft within the staff of the corporation.

The city now relies on privately owned buses and coaches, taxis and motorised rickshaws for commercial transport. All these are in bad shape, and cause more problems than they solve: adding to the already polluted streets of the city.

Most of Karachi's transport is unregulated and runs unchecked partially because most of it is owned by the city's corrupt police officials and also because transportation has become a thorny issue in the city of 12 million, making the private sector reluctant to invest in it.

In 1986, a privately owned bus ran down a school girl in one of the city's middle class localities. That triggered off one of the city's most severe bouts of ethnic violence pitting the local Mohajir community, immigrants from India, against the Pathans and Punjabis, settlers from the north who dominate the transport business in the city.

Today, the transport business is still in the hands of outsiders and tensions run high over how it is managed. Buses belch fumes and smoke and passengers hand on the outer railings at peak hours as conductors charge unregulated fares and usually break traffic rules to pick as many passengers as possible.

However, all that will change once the light rail project gets completed. But the project is running behind schedule. A cash-strapped federal government refused funds in fiscal 1997-98 because it was diverting money to more important projects like the 1.5 billion dollar Islamabad-Lahore motor way, completed in November this year.

A similar project is on the rails for Pakistan's second largest metropolis, Lahore. But there is a difference between the two. While the Lahore project, being built with Japanese aid, will be run by Pakistan's public sector once it is completed, the Karachi Mass Transit Project will be run by the same company that builds it. This innovative build-own-transfer (BOT) project promises efficient and clean operations with regulated fares and no overcrowding.

The government further enhanced prospects for the project by enhancing its equity share and scaling down its loan component. The Canadian government and foreign lenders have renewed their commitment to finance the project and the only hitch that remains is that the government has to give its go-ahead for the consortium to achieve financial closure.

After this go-ahead, the consortium expects to reach financial closure within six months. That will be the last stage before actual work begins of the project, say officials.

Copyright © 1997 Indian Express Newspapers (Bombay) Ltd.