JHANG: People belonging to various walks of life have urged the railways to reroute Millat Express via Malakwal and Jhang Sadar, instead of its present route of Faisalabad and Toba Tek Singh.

Local business community, lawyers, political leaders and civil society have also urged the railways ministry to change the timetable of Hazara Express, running between Karachi and Haripur, to run via Jhang at day time. Presently, both up and down Hazara Express reach here after midnight.

Its schedule is utterly unsuitable to the commuters traveling from Jhang to Multan and Karachi and on the up line to Sarghodha and Rawalpindi .

Locals believe that Jhang has always been at the receiving end of a step-motherly treatment by successive governments as far as the railway communication is concerned. Jhang city and sadar have a population of 0.7 million people with growing trade and industry and a fairly large business community.

A number of businessmen of Jhang have opened their company offices at Karachi and they have to travel frequently between Jhang and Karachi. Not very long ago, not a single express train was available on the Sarghodha-Jhang-Shorkot railway section .

A couple of years ago Hazara Express started running on this section but it too had only economy coaches. People belonging to affluent business community preferred traveling to Faisalabad to catch a train .

Rerouting of Millat Express is not going to affect commuters of Faisalabad and Toba since express trains like Shalimar, Karakoram, Pakistan and Night Coach ply via Faisalabad and Toba.

Published in Dawn, April 22nd, 2015

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