LAHORE, Jan 28: A nine-member delegation of the Indian Railways arrived here on Saturday.

The delegation was received at the Allama Iqbal International Airport by senior officers of the Pakistan Railways.

Sources said during the five-day tour, the Indian delegation would finalize modalities of reviving the Khokhrapar-Munabao train service.

“An agreement for resuming the second rail link is likely to be signed in Islamabad on Monday (tomorrow) after the second round of talks on Sunday,” they said. General Manager (Operations) Saleemur Rehman Akhond of PR will lead the Pakistani team.

The Indian delegation is scheduled to return home on Feb 1.

An understanding to revive the service from the first week of February was reached after two-day talks between the railway authorities of the two South Asian neighbours on Jan 6. It was also decided to sign an agreement on modalities of running the train later this month.

The replacement of 135-kilometre meter gauge track with broad gauge from Mirpurkhas to Zero Point (border), which is some eight kilometres from Khokhrapar, started in mid-May last year. Simultaneously started from the ends of Khokhrapar and Mirpurkhas, the track replacement was completed in the third week of December last year.

A decision to resume the rail link, severed in the September 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, was taken during the visit of President Pervez Musharraf to India in April last year.

Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has directed the railways authorities to complete the project by year-end by extending the line to another 10 kilometres up to Munabao in Rajasthan to re-establish a second India-Pakistan train service.

The resumption of the Khokhrapar-Munabao rail link would minimize the journey between the two countries to five hours. At present, people have to travel through Lahore.