ISLAMABAD: The Ministry of Railways on Wednesday constituted a five-member committee to prepare business plan for Pakistan Railways in the wake of recent Supreme Court direction.

The committee would be headed by Railway Board Secretary Arshad Salam Khattak while director general of property and lands Hafeezullah, CFO Hamid Mehmood, Railcop CEO Syed Najm Saeed and chief account officer Syed Shozab Raza Naqvi would be its members, it was decided at a meeting chaired by Railways Minister Saad Rafique.

At the meeting, it was decided that ‘Green Line’ train would resume its service by the end of January. The transport of wheat and fertilizer also came under discussion.

The apex court had asked Pakistan Railways to improve its efficiency rather than floating fanciful ideas. The chief justice observed that railways owned assets worth billions of dollars but its performance had shown no improvement.

A railway sector assessment for Pakistan carried out by the Central Asia Regional Economic Cooperation (Carec) observed that without a major financial injection to invest in replacement of most of the existing railway, the present problems are likely to worsen and the role of railways in Pakistan will be further diminished. CPEC proposals are expected to provide a massive financial injection of loans from China to upgrade and extend the main north-south railway corridor, ML1.

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2023