HARIPUR: The designing of the proposed Baldhair dry port will be carried out by a team of Chinese engineers by the end of this year, official sources told Dawn here.

They said the Chinese engineers designing the Pakistan Railway’s ML-I project would work out the acres of land required for the project.

The dry port project expected to boost economic activities in the area by creating job opportunities for the locals, is among the projects of the second phase of the multibillion dollar CPEC project. It will be built around the Baldhair railway station in the east of the Haripur city.

According to official documents, Pakistan Railways Advisory and Consultancy Services (PRACS) had in early 2018 conducted the first feasibility of the area, proposing 260 acres of land to be acquired from Baldhair, Bagra No 2, Dobandi and Kholian villages. The rates to be offered to the landowners were worked out by the local revenue authorities. However, the landowners rejected the rates, insisting these were much below the market rates.

The sources said designing of dry port’s building and other infrastructure besides allaying the apprehensions of the landowners were underway when Chinese engineers left for their country in February this year. But, they could not return as scheduled owing to the Covid-19-induced travel restrictions.

According to official sources, the project implementation unit had, following complaints from landowners, decided to revise the project’s design, and proposed that it should be built on the railway’s land.

Moreover, they said railway’s infrastructure specialist of project implementation unit, CPEC, Lahore, Mohammad Shafiq, had on August 11, 2020 written a letter to the director monitoring and evaluation ministry of railways, stating that the project might not be needing land beyond 17.5 acres which was already available with the railways near the Baldhair railway station, and in case the project required any further land it could be acquired from private landowners.

When contacted, Mr Shafiq confirmed that efforts were afoot to utilise the railway’s land for the dry port project.

However, he said the design finalisation and acquisition of land would be done in November this year when Chinese engineers working on ML-I project would resume work after restoration of international flights.

Published in Dawn, September 28th, 2020