KARACHI, May 4: The Space and Upper Atmospheric Research Commission (Suparco) on Wednesday handed over the topographic survey of the Karachi rail-based mass transit Corridor-I – between the Sohrab Goth and Mereweather Tower – to the city government. The document was presented to the City Nazim, Niamatullah Khan, by Suparco Chairman Maj-Gen (Retd) Raza Hassan Hussain at the Civic Centre. A briefing was also held.

DCO Fazalur Rehman, DG of the Karachi Mass Transit Cell Malik Zaheerul Islam and divisional head of Suparco Javaid Ali were among those present.

Though Suparco had been assigned the task of undertaking the survey in Sep 2004, it signed an agreement with the city government in this regard only on Wednesday.

The nazim on this occasion formed an eight-member committee to work out modalities and consider Suparco’s offer of developing a digital map of Karachi, GIS (Geographical Information System) of various city government departments, and tracking and monitoring of their vehicles for the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme.

The committee will be headed by DCO Fazalur Rehman, and KMTC’s Director General Malik Zaheer-ul-Islam will act its secretary-cum-member. Other members include city government EDOs of Revenue, Information Technology, Finance and Planning, Master Plan and DOs (Coordination and Human Resource Management).

The KMTC’s Director General, Malik Zaheerul Islam, told the meeting that a detailed topographical survey was required to obtain updated infrastructural information for implementing the rail-based mass transit system for Corridor-I, and Suparco, whose bid was the lowest, was awarded a contract in this regard in Sep 2004.

The Suparco Chairman, Maj-Gen (Retd), Raza Hassan Hussain, assured the city government that any shortcoming, if found, in the topographical survey of the Karachi rail-based Mass Transit (Corridor-I) would be removed.

The Suparco’s divisional head, Javaid Ali, informed the meeting that Suparco conducted lose traverse surveys throughout the corridor merely to ensure the accuracy of the topographic maps and permanent benchmarks.

He said with a view to ensure the accuracy of heights above mean sea-level of all permanent monuments, double level survey was carried out throughout the corridor. Besides, cross-section level data was collected at regular intervals along with measurement of widths.

He said that two depot areas – one railway yard at the Mereweather Tower and the other at Sohrab Goth – were also surveyed although there were not included in terms of reference of the survey.

Elaborating, he said that the total length of the topographical survey corridor was 17 km including one km on either side of the two ends.

The corridor was aligned from Sohrab Goth to Mereweather Tower via Water Pump, Aisha Manzil, Karimabad, Dakkhana, Tin Hatti, Guru Mandir, Old Numaish, Jamia Cloth market and New Memon Masjid.

The extent of survey along both flanks of the roadway was defined as building line to building line in built-up area and 125 metres in the roads from the centre line and 250m on major intersections whereas the width of the cross-section level was kept at 25m for the entire route.