KARACHI: Pakistan’s first ever freight train in the private sector left Karachi for its destination, Lahore following the inauguration by the Minister Railways along with Governor Sindh Imran Ismail, CEO of Marine Group Asim Siddiqui and CEO Pakistan Railways Freight Transport Company (PRFTC) Zafar Zaman Ranjha on Tuesday, December 25, 2018.

Federal Minister for Railways, Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed vowed to revive Pakistan Railways (PR), with the help of private sector in short span of time.

The minister has also assured to replace all existing mainline tracks under Project of ML1 (Main Line, Karachi to Peshawar via Lahore) with the Chinese assistance. “ML1 will be the revolutionary project which is meant to replace 1,750 km tracks,” he said.

He claimed that even Pakistan Steel would be revived through this project. He assured to initiate two more passenger trains from Sindh as occupancy rate was higher than 142 percent in Sindh. He also pointed out to remove encroachments from Railways’ land so that Karachi Circular Railways (KCR) should be revived.

Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed said that the freight train project was the initiative of Marine Group’s Asim Siddiqui as he offered Rs3.0 billion a year revenue. He called upon the private sector to initiate more projects like freight train.

The CEO of Marine Group, Asim Siddiqui said that project of freight train had been initiated following an agreement signed with Pakistan Railways Freight Transport Company (PRFTC) to run daily one goods train to Lahore from Karachi.

As per agreement, the freight trains will be run on daily basis in the first phase and then another train will be added later on between Lahore and Karachi while other sectors including Multan, Faisalabad, Sialkot would also be added into the network. He said that there would be four freight trains operating daily by March 2019.

Governor Sindh, Imran Ismail while appreciating the efforts made by Sh Rasheed and Asim Siddiqui to revive Pakistan Rilways said that the present government was making every possible effort to establish a corruption free society.