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245 coaches of Express Trains to be refurbished

RECORDER REPORT

LAHORE: Pakistan Railways will refurbish as many as 245 coaches of ten Express Trains at a cost of Rs. 196 million so as to provide modern travelling facilities to the passengers including mobile phone service in the trains.

This was stated by the General Manager, Pakistan Railway, Iqbal Samad Khan while addressing a gathering on the occasion of arrival of refurbished Tezgam at the Lahore Railway Station from Rawalpindi on Thursday.

The Chief Executive, Pervez Musharraf inaugurated the refurbished Tezgam running between Rawalpindi and Karachi at Rawalpindi Railway station on Wednesday.

Ten Express Trains running on major routes of the country will be refurbished under a phased programme. An average Rs. 0.8 million will be spent on refurbishing of one coach.

The Railway General Manager stated that it has been planned to refurbish 13-Up/14-Down Lahore-Karachi Night Coach, 105-Up/106-Down Lahore-Karachi Shalimar Express and 107-Up/108-Down Faisalabad-Karachi non-stop night coach.

Later talking to newsmen, Iqbal Samad hoped that Railway would reach break-even in its expenditures and income by the year 2001. He said all out efforts were being made to improve the financial position of this vital national institution. He claimed that the political governments in the past neglected the Pakistan Railways while the present government in general and the Chief Executive in particular was showing special interest to improve the situation in railways.

He said in the past, dinning cars and stalls were allotted on political basis due to which Railway earned only Rs. 5.3 million last year while this time these had been given through open auction and the Railway till date had received Rs. 65 million.

The General Manager said it has also been decided to lease out the prime land and property of the Railways to generate more revenue. He said the ticketing system was also being computerised, but it would take at least eight months more. He said it was also being considered to involve private parties in this process.