The financing committee led by the deputy chairman Planning Commission (PC) will finalise formalities of $9.2billion Main Line (ML-1) project under the China Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) with the Chinese authorities before the expected visit of China's President Xi Jinping to Pakistan.
This was revealed by Railways Secretary Habibur Rehman, while briefing the National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways, which met with Muhammad Moeen Wattoo in the chair, here on Monday.
The committee was informed that Prime Minister Imran Khan had constituted a financing committee under the chairmanship of the PC deputy chairman with the mandate to expedite the fulfillment of codal formalities required for the approval of PC-1 and execution of ML-1 project.
Three meetings of the financing committee have already been held, wherein an early approval of PC-1 has been urged.
However, it was revealed that following the outbreak of COVID-19 (coronavirus), the financing committee is yet to hold full fledge meetings on loan negotiations with the Chinese authorities as neither the Chinese could come nor the Pakistani authorities could go to China.
They however are keeping contact through emails.
Railways officials out rightly rejected the delay in ML-1 project, while saying that the PC-1 has been submitted to the PC on October 24, 2019, and as per Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar's commitment, it would be cleared by the ECNEC by April 15, 2020.
Ministry of Railways arranged two consultative meetings with stakeholders (MPDR, EAD, and Finance) on January 14, 2020, and January 29, 2020, for early approval of the PC-1 and completion of other codal formalities.
After clearance of the PC-1 from the ECNEC, tender of the project is likely to be issued in September 2020.
The Railways secretary also informed the committee that China was not interested in Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project.
In response to a question, the committee was informed that so far Rs6.2 billion had been released to the Railways under the Public-Sector Development Programme (PSDP) against an allocation of Rs16 billion for the entire year.
The ministry has utilised Rs3.6 billion i.e. 61 percent of the released amount.
The ministry officials informed that the Finance Ministry had issued circular for the next year's budget but it had yet to share Indicative Budgetary Ceiling (IBC) to the Railways Ministry.
However, the ministry has completed its preparation and demanded Rs30.989 billion for ongoing projects under the PSDP 2020-2021.
In the absence of IBC, the ministry is yet to finalise new projects.
The committee directed the ministry to provide the list of new project at the earliest.
The committee was informed that under Vision 2025, target for railways is to increase its share in the transport sector from the current four percent to 20 percent.
The railway has developed a framework, which is aimed at providing safe, comfortable and environmentally-friendly journey to the people.
As regard the implementation status of the previous recommendations of the committee, the committee has expressed their reservation particular on the report of Federal Government's Inspector of Railways (FGIR) regarding the Tezgam Express incident that happened on October 31st, 2019, and compensation announced for the deceased/injured passengers by the Ministry of Railways.
The Ministry of Railways secretary and others informed that the final report on the Tezgam Express incident has been submitted to the committee along with facts and figures, fixation of responsibility, and recommendations.
He further informed on the question of the members of the committee that 77 identified deaths occurred in the incident and of those 75 bodies were handed over to their legal heirs. He said 10 unidentified bodies were with the Railways.
On the issue of compensation announced by the Minister for Railways, 58 cheques to the families of deceased and 34 cheques to the injured were distributed through Postal Life Insurance and the remaining 16 cheques will be delivered soon after due process and scrutiny.
The committee deferred the agenda items from vi to vii for next meeting proposed to be scheduled on 5th March, 2020 subject to the written request from the office of chairman Standing Committee.
The meeting was attended among others by Arbab Aamir Ayub, Sheikh Rashid Shafique, Amjad Ali Khan, Dr Muhammad Afzal Khan Dhandla, Tahir Iqbal, Aftab Jehangir, Engr Sabir Hussain Kaim Khani, Chaudhry Muhammad Hamid, Hameed Ali Pervaiz, Muhammad Khan Daha, Nauman Islam Shaikh, Ramesh Lal, and Abdul Wasay, besides officials of the ministry.