KARACHI - The Federal Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that the encroachments on railway track, law & order problems and other hurdles exhausted the foreign donors, which delayed the revival of the much awaited Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project, predicting that project will not be completed within two three years.
However, he promised that PML-N’s federal government will complete the KCR project by joint efforts of the Railway ministry and Sindh government with firm decisions to remove the encroachment on the way of track.
He stated this while addressing “meet the press” programme of Karachi Press Club here on Thursday, unveiling that encroachment on various spots in the way of KCR were remained main hurdle for reviving of this much needed project, adding that we have decided firmy to implement the decisions to remove encroachments. To a question, Federal Minister said that efforts would be made to revive the KCR project by getting foreign financial assistance.
He said that he has planned to hold meetings with the Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, Governor Sindh Dr Isratul Ebad, MQM and other political parties in the city to get their support to remove the illegal encroachments in the way of the KCR project. Regarding the tussle between the railway and provinces on the lands’, federal minister said that Supreme Court had given order by declaring the lands on both sides of the railway track as property of the Pakistan Railway.
He said that he has planned to write letters as well as to meet with the Chief Ministers of the four provinces to get the lands from the provinces back to the Railway.
He announced that if the provinces were not ready to hand over the land to the Railway according to the verdict of the Supreme Court, the Pakistan Railway will approach the Council of Common Interest (CCI) in this regard.
Minister said that efforts were being made to revamp railways and make it a profitable entity. However, he said that the organisation had been facing losses since many years and it would take time to become a profitable state run organisation, while process has been stated. He added that academia is being consulted to get their suggestions for restructuring of the Pakistan Railway, besides he was working on a single point agenda that was to place a right person on a right job to ensure discipline and make the railway a national asset.
About the PML-N’s leadership’ election campaign promise to start bullet train from Peshawar to Karachi after coming in the power, Federal Minister said that currently Pakistan Rails tracks are only 90 KM per Hour, while a plan was under way to improve railway tracks from Karachi to Peshawar, which would enable trains to run at a speed of 120 km per hour. The estimated cost of the project was around Rs 300 billion.
Federal Minister said it had been decided to announce separate freight section and make it a viable source for transportation of goods. He said that out of 110 locomotives in junk yard, 28 had been repaired of which 25 had been added to railways fleet. Pakistan Railways needed around 500 locomotives to run freight trains and at present only eight locomotives were working, he added.
He added that he will not accept the ‘Sifarish” of any MNA or Minister in posting of railway neither he will give jobs to the people of his constituency.
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