Islamabad (Agencies): Prime Minister Imran Khan on Tuesday inaugurated the Railway Live Tracking System and Thal Express train service.
Addressing a ceremony on this occasion, the PM said that said that uplift of the trains system of Pakistan Railways will be taken with the cooperation of China.
He said China is far ahead of other countries in development of train systems and like other areas, we will also seek their cooperation in railways sector to make Pakistan Railways modern and customer friendly passenger service.
The PM said said work on Main Line-1 project will be expedited.
Khan said in the New Pakistan, our priority is to take the people out of poverty by devising people friendly policies. He said the Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) government is implementing its agenda of the welfare of common man.
PM Imran lamented that in previous governments, policies were designed to benefit the elite class only. He said loot and plundering of wealth in past harmed the national economy. He said due to NROs, the fear of accountability had vanished.
The prime minister said our loans jumped to 30,000 billion rupees from 6,000 billion due to corruption and impunity from accountability.
He said that the government was bringing down expenditures at all levels and all ministries had been directed to reduce their outlays by at least 10 per cent.
Earlier, Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmad said Thal Express will connect Rawalpindi to Multan. He said two VIP trains called Jinnah and Sir Syed will be inaugurated from next month.
The minister said twenty more trains will be launched this year. He said the number of freight trains has been increased to 14 which will be further increased.
Sheikh Rashid said in order to reduce expenditures of Pakistan Railways, the schools and colleges run by it as well as its hospitals will be privatised.
He said the vigilance cell in Pakistan Railways has also been abolished.
Sheikh added that 365 acres of land has been acquired in Gwadar from Balochistan government for railway division.
