China to build Karachi overhead transport system

A Chinese firm, China National Machinery and Equipment Group (CNMEC), will build the Karachi Mass Transit Project (KMTP) at a cost of US$568 million.

Sources said that the project would include construction of the corridor for overhead mass transit facility from Sohrab Goth to Tower, via Teen Hatti. The corridor is to be built in two phases and the work is expected to be completed in four and half years.

The second corridor, according to the plan, would be constructed from Orangi to city Cantonment Station. It is Pakistan's first underground mass transit system is being introduced.

Recently the Chinese team headed by the firm's chief coordinator Tin Guangming met with the the City Nazim Naimatullah Khan. The meeting was attended by other representatives of the Chinese firm, the city's technical advisor Saleem Azhar; managing director of pemcom, N H Jaffari; DCO Mir Hussain Ali; director general of the KMTC Malik Zaheerul Islam, and others. They said the feasibility study covering the first corridor of the KMTP was in the final stage…