ISLAMABAD, June 4: The government has planned to convert Pakistan Railways into a state-owned corporation to make it one of the major sectors within the transport system. Revealing this, the Pakistan Economic Survey 2005-06 released in Islamabad on Sunday hinted that all non-core units would also be converted into companies and autonomous bodies.

Pakistan Railways, being the most effective transport system, plays a vital role in generating development opportunities.

Railways has a definite and unmatchable edge over road for long and bulk haulage and mass scale traffic volume, underlines the survey.

Since 2000, Pakistan Railways has launched a modernisation programme with rehabilitation and improvement measures, both for its infrastructure and rolling stock. Pakistan Railways plan to achieve a stage of net profit from the year 2010. The emphasis would be to increase the share of freight traffic for railway sector from existing 5.53 billion-ton kilometres to 10 billion-ton kilometres by 2010.

According to the survey, Pakistan Railways has shown good performance since 2000-01 in respect of passenger and freight traffic, registering an average increase of 5.6 per cent and 8.3 per cent per annum, respectively. A positive growth of 5.2 per cent and 3.6 per cent has been recorded in passenger traffic and freight traffic, respectively, during July-March 2005-06. Whereas freight traffic declined by over 7 per cent in this period due to transportation of oil through pipeline.

The positive growth trend for five consecutive years (2000- 05) can be attributed to the wide range of improvements made by the Pakistan Railways due to completion of a number of development projects and right direction in policy-making towards the modernization of railways.

In addition, Pakistan Railways has improved the quality of services, timeliness and cleanliness, says the survey.

According to the Economic Survey, the passenger as well as freight traffic of Pakistan Railways showed a decline from 10.9 per cent to 9.9 per cent and from 6 per cent to 3.9 per cent, respectively, during the 1995-2006 periods.

In addition, procurement of diesel and electric locomotives, as well as high capacity and high-speed freight wagons and passenger coaches have been planned.

The improvement and provision of rail link to Iran and India, the upcoming Gwadar Port to Afghanistan and Turkmenistan have also been initiated.

At present, the network of Pakistan Railways has international connections to India and Iran, with great plans to improve its position as a transport provider. For a start, the feasibility studies on construction of 107km Chaman-Kandahar line has been completed and the one for Kandahar-Khushka (Turkmenistan) has also been planned.

However, at the same time, rail construction work from Chaman to Spinbuldak will be executed in the first phase.