September 19, 2006	Tuesday	Sha'aban 25, 1427

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ISLAMABAD, Sept 18: Appreciating Pakistan Railways’ initiative to reduce the economy class fares by five percent, the Senate standing committee on railways on Monday asked the ministry to further reduce the economy class fares to benefit the common man.

According to a statement, the committee in a meeting on Monday also asked the ministry not to spend heavily on advertisements and instead divert the funds towards development of the railways. The railways was asked to further improve facilities being provided to the passengers and to reduce the travelling time in order to make it compatible with the requirements of the modern age.

The committee appreciated efforts undertaken by the ministry of railways to focus on passenger safety and comfort. These included introduction of five new express trains — Buraq Express, Sindh Express, Marvi Express, Margalla Express and Thar Express — during the last few months, besides home delivery service of tickets (on payment of a Rs20 service charges), concessionary fares for journalists and senior citizens, payment of pays and pensions through bank and 15-month advance pay facility for employees through the National Bank of Pakistan.

The committee also commended new initiatives like the fibre optic and wireless system for better communication which was expected to help reduce the number of accidents drastically, introduction of better signalling system, provision of walkie- talkies to railway guards, night patrolling for eliminating chances of sabotage in addition to revamping and refurbishing of coaches and bodies.

Secretary railways informed the committee that efforts were underway to prepare feasibility studies for introduction of intra-city railway system in eight major cities including Karachi, Lahore, Multan, Faisalabad and Rawalpindi/Islamabad.

The feasibility study was expected to be completed in the next three months. He said work was also expected to begin on the Karachi Circular Railways for which a Japanese loan of $850 million was already available.

The railways has presently five mega projects for Balochistan which included the 971km Gwadar-Quetta-Chaman railway line via Mastung. The feasibility study was being carried out and the project would cost Rs75 billion including land and construction charges. Similarly, projects had been approved for location of a railway station/container yard in Gwadar at a cost of Rs450 million.

A feasibility study was being carried out for dualisation of Khojak tunnel and the report was expected in December. The feasibility for conversion of Quetta-Zhob meter gauge section into a broad gauge and further extension of railway link to Peshawar via D.I. Khan-Bannu-Kohat was also in progress.

Likewise, the feasibility study No I comprised provision of Chaman-Khushka-Turkmenistan rail link via Afghanistan, he said.

He said efforts were underway to replace old tracks and to introduce modern coaches in the fleet. Once the tracks are upgraded and new coaches introduced, travelling time from Karachi to Peshawar would be reduced significantly and passengers would be able to travel in much greater comfort.