Feasibility report of starting railway service from Quetta to Kandahar okayed

QUETTA: The feasibility report of starting railway service from Quetta to Kandahar has been prepared and sent to the Afghan government and its response is awaited.

This was stated by deputy superintendent of Pakistan Railway Balochistan while addressing a press conference at his office here on Saturday.

He said that Pakistan Railway operated friend train to Turkey through Iran on August 14, 2009, in which it succeeded and now waiting for demand of traders.

According to him, about 125 bomb blasts were carried out on railway tracks and bridges since 2006,due to which Pakistan Railway suffered losses between 250 to 300 million rupees losses, adding, it has also got the services of Frontier Corps, police and levies to ensure security of railway tracks and passengers and line is cleared before the train leaves for its destination.

Magsi said that attacks on railways installations have been decreased by 50 percent and there are gates on 121 railway crossings and ready to install gates on the remaining crossings if the provincial government and NHA provided funds to it.

He said that survey of Quetta to Zhob section and broad gage from Dera Ismail Khan to Kohat has been completed and its approval is awaited after which funds would be allocated in PC-1 and work on it would be started.

There are two important crossings in the Quetta city from where railway line is passing and on which gates have been installed.

To a question, the DS railway said no stop train service had been operated from Quetta to Karachi and succeeded but stopped due to unavoidable reasons, adding, no incident of people coming from Chaman to Quetta illegally had been taken place and tickets are being issued after checking of CNICs.

To another question, he said that presently we have 36 engines, which are all old, and we needed new engines and fog throughout the country causes delay in the arrival of trains.

Expressing grief and sorrow over the Mian Channu incident, he said that people should observe extreme care while passing on the crossings having no gates but should wait for passing the train.

He said that there had been 121 railway crossings in Balochistan since British era, in which 88 have neither any watchman nor gate.

He said that people were traveling without tickets on Quetta-Chaman route and our revenue was only 1.7 million rupees and reached to Rs.13.5 million after we started checking.

To a question, he said that people should point out those staff involved in selling tickets on black and strict action would be taken against them.