Chairman Planning Commission Akram Sheikh will preside over a meeting of the senior officials of the Pakistan Railways (PR), World Bank and other stakeholders on Thursday to prepare a master plan for modernisation and rehabilitation of more than a century old British-built railways, official sources told Business Recorder here on Wednesday.
They said that accepting the World Bank's offer of $2 billion for rehabilitation of Pakistan's logistic network, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz had directed the Planning Commission to come up with a plan on urgent basis as Pakistan needed efficient and reliable railway infrastructure for its growing economy.
The sources added that PR system and its rolling stocks have almost become obsolete and needed to be replaced under a well-prepared phased programme. Out of 565 locomotives, only 30 locomotives are new and similar is the ratio in freight wagons and passenger coaches, they said.
The sources said that Railways was working on 15 development projects, including revival of Karachi Circular Railways; doubling of Lodhran-Lalamusa track; electrification of Samasata-Lahore section; modern signalling system at Rohri-Lahore section; including Gwadar Port into PR network; construction of standard 5.6-ft gauge track at Khokhrapar section and procurement of 100 locomotives, 100 passengers coaches and 1000 high-capacity freight wagons.
They said that under comprehensive PR policy, the ministry wanted to reinforce the infrastructure, co-ordinate between different modes of transport ie sea, rail and land and put into force aggressive marketing. The automatic train protection system is also being introduced for the safety of 750 million passengers, who travel by train yearly, the sources added.
They said it was the present government that had sufficient funds for the rehabilitation of Pakistan Railways to use its enormous potential as the reliable and fast logistic network for sustainable economic growth, as Pakistan Railways is no more an economic burden on the national exchequer but has become a profit-earning public sector organisation in just five years.
Comments
Comments are closed.