MULTAN, Sept 26: Federal Communications and Railways Minister Lt-Gen Javed Ashraf (retired) has laid the foundation stone of the dualization of track between Khanewal and Lodhran.

The ground breaking ceremony was held on Thursday at Shersha Railway Station in the outskirts of Multan.

The 121 kilometres double track will be completed at a cost of Rs3,297.52 million in four years. Its foreign exchange component will be Rs1,146.7 million which will be spent mostly on the purchase of new rails and track maintenance equipments.

Speaking on the occasion, the minister said the project was in line with the commitment of the present government towards the modernization of railways infrastructure in the country.

The priority, he said, was given to the Lodhran-Khanewal section because this section had become a serious bottleneck for mail, express and freight trains between Karachi-Lahore and Karachi-Peshawar routes. Due to the single line, trains were inordinately detained which resulted in the wastage of precious fuel and rolling stock, he said.

The minister claimed that Rs382 million per annum of fuel would be saved after the track dualization. Besides, it would also cut down the journey by almost four hours for freight trains and one hour for express trains.

Talking to newsmen, he said the Samjhota Express had been suspended by India and not by Pakistan. Realizing the extent of loss, India had recently requested for a freight train between the two countries. “But we have made this proposal conditional with the restoration of Samjhota Express”, he said.

The railways, he said, was targeting to introduce train service of 150 kilometres per hour, and the tracks were being strengthened for this purpose.

During the current year, the double track will be extended upto Buch, some eight kilometres from the place of ground breaking ceremony. As a next step, the track between Khanewal and Raiwind will be doubled.

The entire project involves 11 sections and will require the additional facilities, material and equipments like rails (14,000 tons), earthwork (22.8 million cubic feet), ballast (9.5 million cubic feet), 182 bridges (medium and small) and 35 level-crossings.