LAHORE, May 25: Pakistan Railway’s income from its Moghulpura dry port has increased threefold, from Rs9 million to Rs27 million per month, during the last 14 months, dryport director Brig Ghulam Akbar Khan Niazi told Dawn on Saturday.

He said the improvement was achieved by offering an incentives package to the exporters/importers and assuring them that their consignments would be safe on the rail network.

Earlier, he said, the railway was handling only a tenth of the cargo. The situation had reversed and now nine tenths of the total cargo was being hauled through the rail network, he said. The railways, he said, had to run 28 freight trains between Lahore and Karachi every month to handle the business.

Giving details of the incentives the railways was offering to businessmen, he said the exporters who wanted to send their shipments by rail were not charged Rs200 per container dryport entry fee. They also did not need to pay Rs200 per ton export charges. Each 40-ft container weighs 30-35 tonnes. They were also exempt from the payment of Rs1,500 loading charges.

Mr Niazi said the railways was also offering competitive freight tariff to exporters. According to him, a sum of Rs10,800 was being charged per 40-ft container. The charges were around Rs17,000 per container by road.

The railways also ensured that the shipment reached the port eight hours ahead of loading the ship. The exporters had the facility of knowing where their shipment was at a specific time.

“No such facility is available to those shipping their cargo by road. If a truck develops a fault on the way there is no guarantee about when the consignment will reach its destination.”

For import consignments, Mr Niazi said, the freight charges per 40-ft container were Rs22,500 and for 20-ft container Rs10,500. The average cost of hauling the contents of a 40-ft container by road is Rs45,000.