LAHORE, April 30: Federal Railways Minister Shamim Haider has said the government has refused to purchase 20 railway engines from China because it is not satisfied with their quality. The minister said this at a seminar on ‘Construction of Big Dams’ organized by the Institution of Engineers, Pakistan, here on Saturday.

He said the government wanted to purchase 36 railway engines costing 1.5 million dollar each. He said the Railways were expected to earn a profit of Rs7.5 billion during 2005. He called upon engineers to tour all the four provinces for developing consensus on the construction of big dams. The government would announce the construction of big dams after a consensus emerged, he added.

Dr Mubashar Hassan said the construction of big dams had been delayed inordinately and further delay would be unforgivable. Engineer Aftab Islam said that 80,000 engineers in the country supported the construction of Kalabagh and Bhasha dams. Engineer Khurshid Ghiyas said that politicians should support big dams.