ISLAMABAD, March 8: Federal Communications and Railways Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi has said that China is providing technical assistance for manufacturing passenger coaches and locomotives.

During a visit to Rawalpindi Railway Station, he inspected the colour scheme for the Chinese coaches. Railways Secretary Saeeduz Zafar and other officials were also present.

The minister said Pakistan Railways is making rapid development and measures had been taken for providing better facilities to the people. He said the government wanted to make the railways a profitable department and to provide facilities of international level to the people.

He said refurbishment of 18 railway coaches had been completed and 19 locomotives had been manufactured by Pakistani engineers at the Risalpur factory.

He said renovation and air-conditioning of coaches and manufacturing of locomotives should be done on priority basis.

He said maximum advantage would be taken from technical cooperation of China.

He said an effective system should be adopted to check travelling without tickets and the ticketing system was being computerized.

He said comprehensive steps had been taken to develop Pakistan Railways on commercial basis and cooperation of private sector was being obtained in this regard. He said the government’s endeavour was to save the resources of railways from being wasted.

The minister ordered that attention should be paid to provision of a healthy environment at the railway stations.

He said steps must be taken for providing edibles to the travellers at reasonable rates.

Saeeduz Zafar said effective steps had been taken for security and cleanliness of the railways stations and elimination of corruption. He said use of railways land on commercial basis would improve the performance of Pakistan Railways.—APP