Railway preposition for CPEC

Islamabad: The second inter ministerial meeting on improvement of rail connectivity with Karachi Port Trust (KPT), Bin Qasim (BQM) and Gwadar was held on Tuesday at Ministry of Railways, Islamabad.

Parveen Agha, Chairperson, Ministry of Railways said that Pakistan Railways is doing prepositioning for CPEC and KPT is quite important for connectivity. While chairing the meeting she claimed there is substantial increase in line capacity of Main Line I.

It was proposed in the meeting that railway track extension shall be done up to pilot gate of KPT. This track will be adjacent to Karachi International Container Terminal (KICT). KPT also raised the issue of condemned wagons. According to PR, condemned wagons are being cleared on priority and so far 179 out of 525 condemned wagons have been cleared. It was decided that South Asia Pakistan Terminal Limited (SAPT) has to furnish vertical and horizontal coordinates for lying of 1.1 km of track. It was proposed by KICT to give its Bolan gate to SAPT for convenience. It was told that scrap alongside the track has been cleared and now full length trains are being placed for loading of coal/phosphate at Kemari. Another thing which was discussed was loading of containers from inside Pakistan International Container Terminal (PICT).Although right of way inside PICT is not established yet loading from inside the terminal has been started recently through coordination among PR,KPT and PICT.KPT also assured that rehabilitation of Railways yards inside KPT will be carried out. The rail connectivity with Pakistan International Bulk Terminal (PIBT) at Port Qasim was also discussed. PIBT is interested in creation of state of the art freight station for PR.

The meeting was attended by Mumtaz Ali Shah, Secretary Maritime Affairs, Asif Hammad, GM KPT, Syed Rashid Jamil, CEO, SAPT, Horace Hui, CEO, KICT and Khurram Khan, CEO PICT. While Agha Waseem, Syed Munawar Shah, Syed Mazhar Ali Shah and Basharat Waheed were representing Ministry of Railways.

It is a known fact that PR is giving importance to Rail connectivity with ports. For this purpose PR is working on doubling and improvement of existing track from Port Qasim to Bin Qaim. The new track of 10.30 km out of 13 km is completed. The extension/construction of 5 bridges has been started on the track. There is 85% of cumulative financial progress on this project.