LAHORE: Sheikh Rashid Ahmad Saturday said the Railways had earned a recordincome of Rs 453.40 million during the first week of December.
Addressing a press conference here, the railway department said thedepartment had earned Rs 261.20 million in the first week of December 2017.
He said the department had saved 650,000-litre fuel despite starting 20 newtrains during the last three months.
He thanked people for expressing their trust in the railways and said thatall tickets till Dec 21 from Lahore to Karachi had been sold out and now noticket was available.
The minister said Rehman Baba Express train between Peshawar and Karachivia Rawalpindi, Wazirabad and Faislabad would be launched on December 23which would complete its run in 26 hours.
He said two container trains would soon be introduced and preparations inthis regard were under way.
The minister said it had been decided to open pharmacies and small tuckshops at big railway stations of the country.
He said the railways wanted to lease 1000 sites for establishment of petrolpumps and it was awaiting the decision of the Supreme Court, which wasexpected on Dec 24. He said all seven locomotive sheds were beingcomputerized for improvement in performance of the locomotive sheds.
He said an Information Technology (IT) group was being established atrailway division level on the direction of the prime minister.
The minister said a rescue rail car between Lahore and Rawalpindi couldconditionally be operated in case of expected motorway blockage due to fogduring the winter season.
To a question about increase in the fare, he said that railways wascharging Rs 1350 from Peshawar to Karachi which was equal to the road farebetween Lahore and Rawalpindi.
He said after introducing 10 new trains, now rakes of all trains would beimproved.
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He said that decision about the Main Line-1 (ML-1) would be finalisedbefore Dec 31 and it had planned to upgrade ML-II and ML-III within fewyears.
He said that tenders were being published regarding reduction of curvebetween Gojar Khan and Jhelum on Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.
“The distance will be reduced from 59 kilometres to 19 kilometres in resultof which one hour travel time will be decreased between Lahore andRawalpindi,” he added.
He said that private parties were also interested in freight trains andapproval had been granted in this regard.
To a question, he said the current regime was focusing on planning while inthe past, focus remained on purchasing.
He urged Prime Minster Imran Khan to upgrade the scale of labours in therailways.
To a question about the locomotives purchased during the previousgovernment, he said that condition of those locomotives was not good eventhough these locomotives had been purchased on higher prices.
“We would not purchase any locomotive and operate the railways by repairingthe old engines,” he clarified.
Chairman Railways Sikandar Sultan Raja, Chief Executive Officer AftabAkbar, AGM Traffic Abdul Hameed Razi and other officers were also present.
