PR agreement: Railways needs $12 billion for ‘complete revamp’

Minister says locomotives through Chinese assistance will be used to transport coal.

LAHORE:

Restructuring of a cash-strapped Pakistan Railways is not an easy task and cannot be achieved in a matter of a few years, said Minister of Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique during a press conference, adding that an amount of $12 billion would be required to “completely revamp” its infrastructure.

The press conference was held to mark an agreement for the provision of 55 diesel-electric locomotives of 4,000-4,500 horse power from General Electric. The company will start delivering locomotives as ‘complete build units’ within 16 months. Railways expects to recover the cost of around Rs340 million per locomotive within three years.

“Railways needs financial assistance of around $12 billion to completely revamp its dilapidated infrastructure to modern lines,” said Rafique as he mentioned an amount that is a little less than the central bank’s total foreign currency reserves.

Read: Locomotives: Railways spends Rs11b on repair

He said Chinese assistance of $3.69 billion under China-Pakistan Economic Corridor will only help in upgrading a certain segment – the Main Line-1 (Karachi-Peshawar). “However, we are trying to get financial assistance from other countries to upgrade our Main Line-2 (Lahore-Faisalabad-Bahawalpur) and Main Line-3 (Rohri-Quetta) on build-operate-transfer mode,” he added.

“Only after up gradation of the main lines will we be able to look after the branch lines.”



Railways minister Khwaja Saad Rafique oversees the agreement signing with General Electric for 55 locomotives. PHOTO: PID

Talking about the acquisition of 55 locomotives from GE, Rafique explained that, the basic purpose of these locomotives is to transport coal for coal-fired power plants under construction in Punjab.

“Out of the total, some 40 locomotives will be dedicated for coal transportation, 20-22 for Sahiwal coal plant, 10 for Jamshoro coal plant and rest for other plants,” he explained, adding that the rest would be used to increase freight trains fleet which is the backbone of Railways to generate revenue.

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“We will also call for a tender for 20 locomotives of 2,000-2,500 horse power out of which 18 will be assembled in our Risalpur factory. That way we will ensure the transfer of technology in Pakistan.”

Though the number of locomotives has started reaching a normal level, but as of today, Pakistan Railways needs 1,000 locomotives to make all its halted train operations functional, he informed further.

Rafique is also hoping to restructure the service structure of Railways’ employees between grad 1-16, as the workers fall in this category are responsible for running the entire operations. “We have hired a few of our senior members as committee members, however, for a transparent service structure tenders will be opened soon,” he said.

Talking about value addition in trains, Rafique said that they are expecting to launch at least three more trains on Green Line train model. “Green Line train is a huge success as we are experiencing 100% occupancy level. Hence, we have decided to offer more trains to facilitate commuters,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 21^st, 2015.

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