“The railway tracks on the network are being replaced under various Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) projects,” official sources in the Ministry of Railways told APP.

They said that Pakistan Railways has also finalised arrangements for the upgradation and construction of more than 50,000 kilometres of tracks across the country on build, operate and transfer (BOT) basis. In this regard, the railways ministry has invited Expressions of Interest (EoI) for the pre-qualification of contractors, after which 10 companies were selected through a bidding process, they added.

They said that rehabilitation and improvement of existing tracks would also be carried out to achieve higher speeds of up to 160 km per hour for which feasibility studies of some of the sections were being conducted.

The BOT mechanism will resolve financing issues, which have remained one of the main hurdles in the way of implementing various projects, the sources said.