Trains speed limited due to poor tracks

The Senate Standing Committee on Railways has expressed displeasure with the snail-paced implementation of the ML-1 project, noting the delay’s potential consequences for the railways system.

During a session of the panel on Tuesday, Deputy Chairman Senate Mirza Muhammad Afridi directed Pakistan Railways to complete the rehabilitation work of the ML-I track at the earliest, and also suggested that the young graduate engineers must also be made part of this project.

He stressed the need for connecting the Gwadar port city with PR at the earliest as it would play a pivotal role in providing strong links with Central Asian countries.

Secretary Railways Syed Mazhar Ali informed the body that the speed limit of new coaches was around 160 km/h, however, due to the sorry condition of ML-I, the coaches were allowed to operate at the speed of 120 km/h.

Furthermore, the committee took up the matter relating to scrap material which was lying pending for auction in the department.

The secretary informed that around 18,867 metric tons of scrap were pending for auction and whose estimated value was around Rs 2358.375 million at a cost of Rs125 per kg without taxes.

However, he said a total of 3,705 metric tons of scrap has been sold and around 11,836 metric tons had been reserved for railway use.

The committee directed the ministry to speed up the sale auction process of pending scrap.

The body was briefed about Public Sector Development Program (PSDP) for the financial year 2023-24.

Abdul Malik, DG of planning railways, apprised the committee that 36 projects were enlisted in PSDP 2022-23 which included 22 infrastructure projects, sic rolling stocks projects, seven governance projects and one project related to business development and the estimated cost of these projects were around Rs1,261 billion.

Seven projects would be completed by the June of this year, he added.
He said that the ministry had only included five new projects for PSDP 2023-24 and intended to allocate 90 per cent of expected funds to ongoing projects and merely 10 per cent to new projects.

(With Input from APP)