Pakistan Railways while expressing its intention of introducing `Peshawar Cargo Express Train’ has sought proposals from private parties for outsourcing commercial management of the project.
According to an advertisement appeared in press, the proposed Peshawar Cargo Express Train will operate between Peshawar city station and Karachi city station via main line.
Peshawar Cargo train will run on a load of 10 ZBCs, a kind of bogies used to transport multiple items, from Peshawar, five ZBCs from Rawalpindi and ZBCs from Lahore to Karachi and vice versa, reads the advertisement issued by Deputy Chief Marketing Manager Freight, Zeeshan Shahzad.
The train, having a potential carrying capacity of 1500 tonnes, will operate daily both from Peshawar to Karachi and from Karachi to Peshawar with en-route stopping stations of Lahore and Rawalpindi for attaching and detaching of ZBCs.
The interested parties are asked to submit proposals for launching of the project till April 19, 2023 while a pre-bid with all the interested parties will be held on April 13, the advertisement added.
Meanwhile the plan of Pakistan Railways for launching of Peshawar Cargo Express Train has been highly hailed by business community dealing in import, export and trade with Afghanistan.Chairman Standing Committee of Sarhad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (SCCI) on Railways, Zia-ul-Haq Sarhadi termed the decision as long lasting demand of business community of the country.
The decision will not only prove as a potential source of revenue generation for Pakistan Railways but will also solve a lot of problems being faced by business community due to transportation of goods between Karachi and Peshawar through bonded carriers.—Transportation of goods in cargo train will also revive the lost livelihood of more than 270 Custom Clearing Agents in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and make the newly constructed Aza Khel Dry port as operational, added Zia ul Haq Sarhadi who is also President Frontier Custom Clearing Agents Association.
He said consignments of different goods including gemstones, minerals, furniture, fruits, handcraft, herbal items and match sticks are exported on daily basis from Peshawar to Karachi and that will be sent through cargo train.
Similarly, raw material for different industries in KP are being transported from Karachi which can also be a source of earning for Pakistan Railways.—NNI
