ISLAMABAD:Pakistan Railways has replaced and repaired 654 bridges across the country during the last three years to ensure smooth operation of trains and safety of the passengers.
“Out of 654, as many as 32 bridges have been replaced and 622 have been repaired during the period, an official in the Ministry of Railways told reporter.
“Pakistan Railways has been paying special focus on repair and rehabilitation of bridges to restore the confidence of the passengers,” the official said.
In addition to above, the official said Pakistan Railway has planned to re-construct all the bridges on its Main Line-I (ML-I) under ML-I Up-gradation Project under China-Pak Economic Corridor (CPEC) framework, PC-1 of which has already been approved by the ECNEC in 2020.
The official said the overall length of track, which has been rehabilitated under the different Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) projects, was being maintained with available resources and the track.
Infact 70 percent railway track in the country has completed its designed life; however, all available resources in revenue allocations were being utilized for safe train operation.
The official said the efforts were also underway to rehabilitate the tracks through PSDP allocation.
To a question, the official said Pakistan Railways was also planning to reconstruct 11 bridges and to repair another 55 in the country.
The department would reconstruct three bridges in Sukkur division, six in Multan and two in Lahore division.
About the repair of bridges in different divisions, the official conveyed Pakistan Railways had planned to repair 34 bridges in Karachi, 11 in Sukkur, two in Multan, five in Rawalpindi, two in Peshawar and one in Quetta.
Around 86 percent of bridges were more than 100 years old, but all of them were safe for train operation due to regular maintenance, rehabilitation and strengthening of the bridges.
Pakistan Railways has 13,959 major and minor bridges over the system and their design life varies for different years.
The standard operating procedure calls for inspection of bridges in accordance with the different schedules like monthly, quarterly, biannually and annually.
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