Islamabad
Pakistan Railways has completed around 95 percent rehabilitation and restoration work on Sibbi-Khost section having length of 132.50 kilometres and rest would be completed soon. The department was facing several problems in completing rehabilitation and restoration work of Sibbi-Khost section due to law and order situation, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
He said the project was in progress under Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) through M/S National Logistics Cell (NLC), where rehabilitation of bridges, railway stations and short embankments have been completed and laying of track was in progress. The section was scheduled to be completed in 2019, but due to slow development work, the department was not able to complete rehabilitation work on time, he added. The official said the Ministry of Railways has actively pursued the revival of Pakistan Railways infrastructure and had undertaken steps to rebuild the Sibbi-Khost section.
He said that the eight bridges of Pakistan Railways were destroyed by extremists resulting non-availability of the suitable transportation facility to the people of the area. With the restoration of the section, he said that people of the areas would not only be facilitated by passengers and freight trains operation but certainly also improve the economic condition of the areas.
To a question, the official said that feasibility study of Rohri-Quetta-Taftan was in progress by Consortium M/S Siayuan (China) and M/s Spectra Pvt Limited (Pakistan). Regarding the availability of restaurant at Rohri Station in Sindh province, he said there was only one canteen functioning at the station, where hygienic quality of food and eatables were provided to passengers. He said that in order to ensure standard quality of food, random and surprise checking raids were conducted by Divisional Commercial Officer (DCO) and ACOs and found that oil of authorized company bread, rice, flour and soft drinks were being used. He said that wherever any discrepancy was noticed, the contractor was fined suitably.—APP
