MIRPURKHAS, April 15: Transportation of railway material for laying the broad-gauge track on the Mirpurkhas-Khokhrapar railway route has begun, as about 8,000 broad-gauge slippers, iron parts and other items arrived at the Mirpurkhas railway station from Juma Goth, near Karachi, through a special goods train on Thursday.

The permanent way inspector of the Pakistan Railways, Mirpurkhas, Ashraf Jameel Jafri, said that work at the railway station was being carried out at an emergency basis and added that in the first phase, it would be completed up to the Pithoro railway station.

The federal government has allocated Rs1 billion for the project, it is learnt.

Our Hyderabad correspondent adds: During a visit of the Sindh governor and chief minister to Khokhrapar on Feb 24, federal railways secretary Shakeel Durrani informed them that a cautious estimate of Rs621 million had been made for the rehabilitation and improvement of the existing 128km-long meter-gauge track between Mirpurkhas and Khokhrapar.

However, an amount of Rs1.8 billion had been estimated for complete conversion of the track from meter-gauge to broad-gauge, which would take about two years to complete the project, he said.

Both the proposals were sent to the federal government and, according to press reports, the central government has approved the second proposal – conversion of the track to broad-gauge.

India has already expressed its willingness to resume railway service between Monabao and Khokhrapar, following resumption of the Srinagar-Muzaffarabad bus service.

The route, a mere 10km-long track, has been lying closed since the 1970’s when hostilities broke out between Pakistan and India.