ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Railways would achieve Rs38 billion profit target set for the current fiscal year, which has been exceeded from the previous year’s Rs32 billion target.
Railway Minister Kh Saad Rafique revealed this during the question-hour session in Senate. He said that the profit received so far was indicating that the national fleet would not only achieve the set target but also exceed it.
Replying to a question, the minister said the government was taking a number of steps to strengthen railways network, adding that Pakistan and Afghanistan were in contact to connect Chaman with Spinboldak and Jalalabad-Peshawar through rail links.
He said Chaman-Spinboldak project (11.5 kilometre track) would be carried out at a cost of Rs 1262.960 million, while the government had offered Afghanistan to bear expenses of the Jalalabad-Peshawar project.
Besides, Saad Rafique said that Pakistan Railways had signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) with the official freight forwarding company of State Turkish Railways, Great Anatolian Logistic Company in 2013.
Under the MoU, he said, the company would finance freight trains and bear allied expenses including marketing for first six months of the project execution.
To another question, he said Pakistan Railways was ready to restore the ‘ECO train service’ but the delay was due to some infrastructure improvement works taking place near Istanbul, Turkey. “The matter is vigorously being pursued with the Turkish authorities.”
Replying another question, the minister said as many as 17 schools established under Pakistan Railways were operating in different cities of the country.
Saad Rafique said various reforms had been introduced in the Railways schools, under which building infrastructure and salary packages of teachers had been improved, besides holding training courses for teaching staff.
