Railways to sell assets to overcome deficit: minister

Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed on Thursday said that Pakistan Railways would sell assets to overcome its deficit. Talking to reporters while inaugurating the newly built "Run Pathani" bridge, which was collapsed during monsoon rains, he said to overcome deficit railways lands would be sold.
He said that eight plots in Dubai of the institution would be auctioned soon and other assets in the country would also be sold out to overcome the losses.
The minister said that the work of railways commercialisation was on fast track and in this regard a new railway track from Kotri to Mirpurkhas would be built, which would cut about one hour of journey.
The railways would be renovated on modern lines and work on rehabilitation of all stations had been started, he said. He announced that a new luxury train would be started from March 23 and President Musharraf would inaugurate the service. He said the railways had invited people, who contributed in the independence of the country to travel through this train to Karachi and pay homage at Mazar-e-Quaid.
He said that confidence of people over railways now was building and in the last six months over two million passengers had increased. He said that there were all categories of fares ranging from Rs 600 to 2,500 available in the railways for all people. He claimed that the filling of all newly started trains was 100 percent.
About Munabao-Khokhrapar train service, he said that Pakistan had spent Rs 2 billion and completed six months and now its India's turn to continue the service.
He hoped that the service would start from February 10, saying if the train service was not started for people from both sides the service would not be allowed for goods train.
He lauded the services of FWO, which had completed work at Run Pathani bridge in three months with the cost of Rs 147 million. After the incident of Run Pathani bridge, the railways had completed survey of over 14,000 bridges for their repair to avoid any such incident in future, the minister said.
Regarding political situation of the country, he said that Benazir Bhutto would not become prime minister because all doors had been closed for her. About General Musharraf's re-election as President, he said that the ruling PML had enough votes required to re-elect him as president.