SC wants railways revamp plan in four weeks
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ISLAMABAD: The Supreme Court on Thursday asked the Planning Commission to complete in next four weeks plans to revamp and restructure the dwindling infrastructure of Pakistan Railways (PR).
A three-judge Supreme Court bench headed by Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) Gulzar Ahmed asked the Planning Commission to place a complete report before the court regarding the initiatives it intends to take for the restructuring of the railways.
The Supreme Court had taken up a suo motu case relating to colossal losses incurred by the PR.
The fast deteriorating state of affairs in the railways caught the attention of the apex court and for the last many hearings the court had repeatedly been asking for bringing improvements to the railways — a preferred means of communication of the common man.
On June 12 also, the Supreme Court had highlighted the need for complete restructuring of the PR, regretting that the railways could not function properly with huge surplus employees who were not only incompetent, but also not sincere towards their institution.
During one such hearing, the CJP had also referred to the repeated occurrence of accidents in which not only a number of innocent lives were lost, but the PR also had to suffer huge financial losses.
The CJP had also regretted earlier that the railways was continuously running into losses but its incompetent employees would never let the department go into profit and that everybody knows about the state of affairs in the railways since it was not a secret to anybody.
On Thursday the Supreme Court also inquired about the Karachi Circular Railway (KCR) project and asked the Planning Commission to overcome all hiccups and roadblocks in bringing the plan back on the track.
The court also ordered the district administration to conduct a thorough survey to complete the feasibility of developing bridges and underpasses in the way of the circular railway.
During the hearing, the CJP regretted about the dilapidated condition of the railway bridge between Karachi and Hyderabad and feared that it might crumble any time.
The CJP recalled the bridge developed during the colonial era at Kotri was still in a good condition and functioning properly whereas all bridges constructed after Ayub Khan’s period was not up to the standard and thus faulty.
There is not a single bridge on the Indus River on which the nation could take a pride, according to the CJP, saying one constructed during the Ayub Khan tenure is the single bridge which can still be called beautiful.
Referring to the Main Railway Line — One (ML-1), the Supreme Court also directed that quality bridges and railroad should be constructed for this project. At this Secretary/Chairman, Ministry of Railways Habib-ur-Rehman Gillani assured the court that the state of the art bridges would be constructed during the up-gradation of Railways trough ML-I, under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), adding the plan would be completed in the next three years.
A part of the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor, ML-1 project, was launched to rehabilitate and improve the existing 1,860km ML-1 railway connecting Karachi, Lahore and Peshawar.
Recently the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (Ecnec) had approved the up-gradation of existing ML-1.
The project was approved at the rationalised cost of $6.8 billion on a cost-sharing basis between the governments of China and Pakistan.
Published in Dawn, August 21st, 2020
