June 24, 2006	Saturday	Jumadi-ul-Awwal 27, 1427

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LAHORE, June 23: Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed has announced opening of all sections of railways for private sector investment and joint ventures and 50 percent reduction in freight of goods trains between Lahore and Karachi.

Addressing businessmen and industrialists at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce and Industry here on Friday evening the minister said that the railways was ready to utilise 60 percent of its property for development purposes and give its land to private sector for investment and joint ventures. He said the railways also offered its track for operation of private trains and invited private sector to run refrigerated trains on railway tracks. He said that importers would be allowed to get goods arriving from India cleared in five days instead of one day. The private sector could also invest in development of a new dry port in the provincial metropolis at Prem Nagar.

The minister said that he had decided to pay attention to increasing income from freight trains because railways had only 5 percent share in goods traffic at present. He had already increased the number of trains to 10 after acquiring 400 wagons and planned to increase the number to 14 trains a day in a year. He said he had decided to offer 50 percent concession on freight from Lahore to Karachi because trains brought goods from Karachi to Lahore and returned empty. He said that the operation of an engine cost railways Rs100,000 a day.

He said shortage of locomotives was the main hindrance in increasing the number of trains and the prime minister had given special permission for import of 75 locomotives to overcome the problem. He said that the railways had made online booking facilities available at its 25 stations and a new station was being added to the list every week. The railways had also decided to refund only 50 percent price of unutilised tickets after departure of the train to discourage bogus booking by coolies. He said economy class fare between Lahore and Rawalpindi had been reduced to Rs120 by exempting the passengers from Rs20 being charged for tea.

Mr Ahmed said that the railways was ready to operate four luxury trains and allow use of its 600 railway stations and 24,000 freight wagons for advertising. One lakh acre of railways’ land in Multan would be offered for investment. Tenders would be invited for construction of a five-star hotel on 15 acres of railways land in Mayo Gardens in a week but not even a single tree would be allowed to be cut for its construction. He said eighty million tickets being sold every year would also be offered for advertising because only one advertisement was enough to meet the cost of ticket material and printing. Land available on both sides of 8500 kilometre railway was also open for investment.