THIS is with reference to the report “Pakistan Railways faces 130pc surge in bogies’ import cost” (Oct 29). The photo-graph accompanying the report showed railway coaches being imported from China. Pakistan Railways inaugurated a factory to produce coaches in Islamabad in the 1970s. It is unfortunate that 50 years on, we are still importing ordinary coaches from China.

I wonder if its production capacity was ever increased or its equipment and mac-hines were upgraded. I am not sure if it works round the clock. Coach fabrication and development are quite simple and can be done by our skilled workshops in Gujranwala, Sialkot, Faisalabad, Lahore and Karachi.

What is Pakistan Railway’s carriage factory busy with these days, one may ask. If it is not functional, we can sell its 58 acres of prime factory land and 83 acres of colony land. With Islamabad’s current land prices, it will surely get us billions. Using it as seed money, we can construct our long-awaited dream Main Line-1(ML-1) track from Peshawar to Karachi. It just needs a firm commitment.

S. Nayyar Iqbal Raza
Karachi

Published in Dawn, November 6th, 2024