Federal Minister for Railways Saad Rafique on Tuesday said that an estimated Rs25 billion is required to upgrade "vulnerable" railway crossings across the country, DawnNews reported.

Rafique, while briefing the Senate Standing Committee on Railways, said there are over 2,000 unmanned railway crossings in the country where some 184 train accidents have occurred in the past couple of years.

Read more: Govt asked to rehabilitate British-era railway track

About 100 passengers have died whereas 120 were injured in accidents over the past two years, the railways minister said, adding that it is high time these "deadly points" are upgraded by means of a public-private partnership initiative.

Rafique said that all railway crossings are supposed to be manned under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) project.

However, that plan will take a "long time to materialise", he said. "We cannot wait for CPEC [to fix] the unmanned railway crossings [as they] are causing fatal accidents."

"We have to allocate funds on our own" to prevent such accidents from happening in future, he added.

Railways ministry officials said a joint survey of vulnerable unmanned level crossing was conducted in collaboration with the Government of Punjab that identified 436 such points in the province alone.

Asking other provincial governments to cooperate, Rafique said that the ministry was able to upgrade 75 of such crossings at a cost of Rs610 million which the Punjab government provided.

In addition, the railways minister said that short, medium and long-term measures have been taken to reduce the number of train accidents.

"Railways have started profiling of all drivers, assistant drivers and gate keepers as well."