Pakistan Railways started transporting 0.1 million tons of wheat from Port Qasim to NWFP on Saturday. PR Director Operations Syed Nasir Zaidi told Business Recorder that one goods train carrying the wheat left Karachi for Peshawar Saturday evening while another was being loaded.
He said Pakistan Railways have allocated one thousand wagons to transport wheat from Port Qasim to Peshawar, Darghai, Havelian and other NWFP cities, which are connected with railway line.
He said a vessel carrying more than 40 thousand tons of wheat has reached Port Qasim, which is being unloaded Zaidi said that Pakistan Railways was vigorously playing its strategic role to build up stocks of essential commodities up country. "Eight to 10 goods trains carrying wheat, oil, coal, fertilisers and other goods were daily leaving Karachi for various cities of Punjab and NWFP", he added.
He said PR had already completed transportation of 20 thousand tons of wheat from Port Qasim to Quetta to beef up the wheat stocks in Balochistan.
He said the tracks, railway stations, signals system, locomotives and other infrastructure, which was damaged in December riots, were being restored at a cost of Rs 6.5 billion on priority basis.