KARACHI: The Pakistan Railways is all set to transport goods under the ambit of Afghan Transit Trade via its freight trains that would not only facilitate safer transport of cargo but will also stop pilferage of goods, it is learnt.
In this regard, the Directorate of Transit Trade has completed all the arrangements besides launching of WebOC Module for Pakistan Railways to ensure safe and smooth transportation of cargo via rail route, sources told Customs Today.
“Pakistan’s ports deal with 2500 to 3000 containers of Transit Trade on monthly basis. The mode of transport by land route is costly as compared to the rail route”, sources added.
Now, it is up to the Pakistan Railways authorities to take business and persuade the authorities to use rail route for Transit Trade transportation.
According to sources, the debiting and crediting of insurance guarantee would now be done in line of PD accounts, such as soon after the cross border event the specific bank guarantee will be debated into the WeBOC system.
Several meetings were held on issues pertaining to time reduction, parameters for RMS based scanning, transit through railway, transshipment facilities, collection of taxes on Afghan Transit cargo, sources added.
It is mentioned here that the Pakistan Railways had offered to start its operations with flatbed trains for handling transit cargo from Karachi to Torkahm-Chaman, whereas, 1-2 trains carrying 100 containers per day will reduce the time and cost for transit trade cargo.
