Rawalpindi: Prime Minister (PM) Imran Khan will inaugurate the Mianwali Express project today (Friday), a news source quoted Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmed as saying. He was talking to the reporters at the Rawalpindi Press Club on Thursday.
He stated that the Mianwali Express was the 36th passenger train project developed by the Pakistan Railways. He added that that the rail service would facilitate the people of the Mianwali district.
The minister revealed that the Pakistan Railways had successfully increased the number of train passengers to seven million during the past 10 months. He added that this figure could be extended to 10 million. He also said that the railway administration had recorded an increase of 7% in freight during the same period.
Rashid expressed the hope that the foundation stone for the Leh Expressway project would be laid soon. He added that authorities concerned were finalising the arrangements for the construction work, and that the feasibility study and PC-1 for the project were already completed. He revealed that the railways administration wanted to install a rail track along the Leh Expressway, which would be completed on a Build-Operate-Transfer (BOT) basis.
Regarding the Main Line-1 (ML-1) project from Karachi to Peshawar, Rashid stated that the authorities concerned would soon finalise the matters regarding its up-gradation. Once the ML-1 gets upgraded, it would entirely change the look of Pakistan Railways and encourage economic revolution in the country, he added.
