ISLAMABAD: Minister for Railways Haji Ghulam Ahmed Bilour said on Wednesday that the operation of 76 trains has been terminated since 2008 due to acute shortage of locomotives.
In reply to a question of Ms Shireen Arshad Khan, he said 86 trains are still being plied in the country. Replying to another question, he said Pakistan Railways had endured Rs 6395.239 million losses during the floods of 2010 while the department suffered a loss of Rs 247.237 million owing to the floods of 2011.
PR is keen to rehabilitate the Railway services through public private partnership. A Memorandum of Understanding(MoU) has already been signed with Ms Four Brothers Pvt limited to run Business Train daily from Lahore to Karachi.
Ms Four Brothers will invest Rs 225.786 million in the Business Train. The train will consist of 13 coaches including nine air conditioned coaches, two power vans, one luggage van and one brake van.
Under Public-private partnership, a container terminal has been set up at Prem Nagar.PR is also setting up Dry Port at Pir Mukhtarwala in Multan and Azakhel in Peshawar division.
Hazara Express, Rohi Express and Fareed Express have been outsourced to M/s PRACS. Likewise the management of main reservation centres has also been outsourced to MS PRACS.
PR is offering track infrastructure to Pakistani private parties for use of their own trains in lieu of payment of Track Access Charges. The private parties operators may procure rolling stocks from anywhere, he said.
Owing to acute shortage of funds the private parties have been invited to invest in repair of 200 inoerative locomotives on public private partnership.
Organizations including National Logistic Cell (NLC) has expressed interest to rehabilitate the locomotives through public private partnership, he added.
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