Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi, member, Pakistan Railways Advisory Committee, Lahore, and chairman, SCCI standing committee on railway and dry port, has demanded of Railway Minister Mian Shamim Haider to cut the railway fares to promote trade in the country.
In a press release issued here on Tuesday, he said due to the rampant increase in the fares of goods and parcel, the trading community has diverted the transportation of their goods to the private sector.
He said the fares of the goods brought in Afghan Transit Trade (ATT) from Karachi to Peshawar and Quetta is very high, and called for cut in it to facilitate trade between both neighbouring countries.
Sarhadi, who is also chairman of the Frontier Customs Agents Group, NWFP, said the arrival of a number of Express trains have been stopped during previous governments without assigning any reason, adding due to the decision more than 300 buses used to travel to Karachi from Swat, Dir, Chitral, Mardan, Dargai, Kohat, Bannu, DI Khan and Karachi.
He called for the re-starting of the modified express trains like Tezro, Chinab and Abasin between Peshawar and Karachi, saying that the stoppage of these trains has badly affected the business community and passengers of NWFP.
Furthermore, he called for the launching of more non-stop trains from Peshawar, and recalled that in recent past Karakoram Express and Jaffar Express trains were started from Rawalpindi while another non-stop train is launching between Rawalpindi and Lahore from September 8.
Similarly, he said a modern train imported from China would be launched between Faisalabad and Karachi shortly would put Pakistan on path of development.