Railways will receive 46 new coaches from China

ISLAMABAD (APP): Pakistan Railways would receive the first batch of 46 new coaches from China on December 15 which would not only upgrade the current rolling stock but also provide modern traveling facilities to the passengers.
“Out of the total 230 coaches, 46 will be provided as completely built units and the remaining 184 to be manufactured in the county by the department’s engineers and technical staff under the supervision of the Chinese experts,” an official told APP.
He said the coaches would have the capacity to run at the train’s speed of 160 kilometres per hour and the teams of Pakistan Railways were in China for the inspection of the prototypes of the coaches as well as the modern high-capacity wagons. The official said the experts of China were also proving training to the technical staff of Pakistan Railways on the manufacturing of such rolling stock.
He said Pakistan Railway was planning to upgrade the dilapidated track as the Khanpur-Kotri section was not fit for high-speed train operation while most of the Main Line-I (ML-I) parts were fit for the 120km per hour train operation.
“After the completion of the ML-I project under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC), the entire ML-1 track would have the capacity to bear the rolling stock operations at the speed of 160km per hour,” he added.
He said that under another similar nature contract, a Chinese company would manufacture 800 freight wagons and 20 brake wagons. The manufacturing of 184 coaches in Pakistan would be under the ‘Transfer of Technology’ project.
For the coaches planned to be manufactured in Pakistan – Pakistan Railways Carriage Factory, Islamabad – the Chinese firm would provide spare parts and raw materials, he added.
The official said the teams of Pakistan Railways had left for China mid of August consisting of 18 officials for design inspections, 20 for other inspections and the others for participating in the training related to the transfer of technology.
Railways retrieved 955 acres land to earn revenue: Pakistan Railways has retrieved as many as 955 acres of its land worth Rs19, 603 million during various anti-encroachment operations across the country in the last five years.
“Around 476 acres retrieved in Punjab, 133 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 327 acres in Sindh and only 19 acres in Balochistan acres land had been retrieved by the Pakistan Railways,” an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
He said that about 3,287 acres in Punjab, 832 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 5,180 acres in Sindh, and 687 acres of land in Balochistan were being encroached. The official said that in the light of orders of the Supreme Court, the anti-encroachment operations for retrieval of encroached railway land all over the Railway network were initiated and a joint procedure order was issued to all Divisional Superintendents for retrieval of Railways land from encroachment.
“The anti-encroachment schedules, on a three months basis, are being prepared and sent to all concerned in line with the joint procedure order,” the official added.
He said Pakistan Railways had also decided to accelerate its ongoing anti-encroachment operation against land grabbers across the country to recoup its land from different individuals, groups, and even business organizations who were using it for residential, commercial, and agriculture purposes for decades.
“The encroachment operation will be launched with the assistance of Railway Police and district administrations of the relevant provincial governments,” he added.
He said the government was taking several steps to retrieve encroached land from the land grabbers including a detailed survey being carried out to identify the encroached land, occupied by the individuals and under illegal occupation by various government departments.
The official said that First Information Reports (FIRs) were being lodged and cases were registered and sent to PR Judicial Magistrates for expeditious trial.
The issue regarding illegal occupation and possession of PR’s land by government departments and institutions has also been taken up with the concerned departments, he added.
The official said PR owned 167,690 acres of land across the country, of which 90,326-acre was in Punjab, 39,428-acre in Sindh, 28,228-acre in Balochistan, and 9,708-acre in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.