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