Lahore-Khanewal railway track may not open this year
Lahore-Khanewal railway track may not open this year
* Red-tape blamed for delay in installation of signals
By Atif Khan
ISLAMABAD: The rail track on Lahore-Khanewal section is set to be dualised by the year-end but trains will not run on it because the Pakistan Railways has yet to install signals on the track. The officials have blamed red-tapism for the delay.According to the sources, the Ministry of Railways had decided to replace the obsolete infrastructure with state-of-the art-infrastructure to overcome the increasing number of rail accidents.On July 25, 2006, Railways Minister Shiekh Rashid Ahmed had told media persons that dualisation of rail track from Khanewal to Lahore was in progress and a project for installation of new signal system from Khanewal to Shahdara had been approved. He had also announced that dualisation of track and installation of signal system would go side by side.When Daily Times contacted Ahmed for comments on delay in installation of signal system, he blamed railways bureaucracy for the delay. He alleged that the railways officials had told a lie to him about the award of signal system project, whereas they had even not invited tenders in this regard.“To overcome signals problem, we are now shifting extra signals installed on the existing rail track to the new track. The current challenge is immediate construction of bridges on two rivers and on my intervention this project has been awarded to FWO,” said Ahmed.He hoped that army engineers would complete the project in time. It is pertinent to mention here that after every accident railways blamed the old signal system for it. “The obsolete signal system was behind the collision of three trains at the Sarhad Station on July 13 last year and the derailment of 10 coaches of Karakoram Express near Samasatta Junction in 2006,” the railways said in a report after inquiry of these accidents.Sources said after the Sarhad accident’s investigations railways was advised that the existing signal system neither meet the safety requirements of high speed trains nor the growing traffic needs and the risk of their malfunctioning could not be ruled out which may result in accidents, railway officials said.Running trains on newly built track with old signal system, already declared as obsolete by the railway officials and held responsible for the severe rail accidents causing heavy financial and human losses in the past, will not resolve the problem of train accidents. Shifting of existing signals, which the railways officials declared as extra, also raises question that why these signals were installed and what is the use of this new rail track with obsolete signal system. The total estimated cost of the project of installing modern signal system was Rs 9 billion in 2004, but the high-ups of railways never approved it due to their vested interests, said sources. In 2007, the cost of the project has gone to Rs 24 billion. This delay and loss due to huge increase in the cost of the project need to be investigated for taking strict action against the persons responsible, said the sources. It is worth mentioning that Ahmed in May this year confirmed in the Senate that Pakistan Railways (PR) had incurred Rs 3.397 billion losses in the last fiscal year.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\19\story_19-9-2007_pg7_32
* Red-tape blamed for delay in installation of signals
By Atif Khan
ISLAMABAD: The rail track on Lahore-Khanewal section is set to be dualised by the year-end but trains will not run on it because the Pakistan Railways has yet to install signals on the track. The officials have blamed red-tapism for the delay.According to the sources, the Ministry of Railways had decided to replace the obsolete infrastructure with state-of-the art-infrastructure to overcome the increasing number of rail accidents.On July 25, 2006, Railways Minister Shiekh Rashid Ahmed had told media persons that dualisation of rail track from Khanewal to Lahore was in progress and a project for installation of new signal system from Khanewal to Shahdara had been approved. He had also announced that dualisation of track and installation of signal system would go side by side.When Daily Times contacted Ahmed for comments on delay in installation of signal system, he blamed railways bureaucracy for the delay. He alleged that the railways officials had told a lie to him about the award of signal system project, whereas they had even not invited tenders in this regard.“To overcome signals problem, we are now shifting extra signals installed on the existing rail track to the new track. The current challenge is immediate construction of bridges on two rivers and on my intervention this project has been awarded to FWO,” said Ahmed.He hoped that army engineers would complete the project in time. It is pertinent to mention here that after every accident railways blamed the old signal system for it. “The obsolete signal system was behind the collision of three trains at the Sarhad Station on July 13 last year and the derailment of 10 coaches of Karakoram Express near Samasatta Junction in 2006,” the railways said in a report after inquiry of these accidents.Sources said after the Sarhad accident’s investigations railways was advised that the existing signal system neither meet the safety requirements of high speed trains nor the growing traffic needs and the risk of their malfunctioning could not be ruled out which may result in accidents, railway officials said.Running trains on newly built track with old signal system, already declared as obsolete by the railway officials and held responsible for the severe rail accidents causing heavy financial and human losses in the past, will not resolve the problem of train accidents. Shifting of existing signals, which the railways officials declared as extra, also raises question that why these signals were installed and what is the use of this new rail track with obsolete signal system. The total estimated cost of the project of installing modern signal system was Rs 9 billion in 2004, but the high-ups of railways never approved it due to their vested interests, said sources. In 2007, the cost of the project has gone to Rs 24 billion. This delay and loss due to huge increase in the cost of the project need to be investigated for taking strict action against the persons responsible, said the sources. It is worth mentioning that Ahmed in May this year confirmed in the Senate that Pakistan Railways (PR) had incurred Rs 3.397 billion losses in the last fiscal year.
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\09\19\story_19-9-2007_pg7_32
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