ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Friday inaugurated Hasan Abdal railway station located in Punjab’s Attock city which has been reconstructed after 127 years.
The prime minister was accompanied by Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Governor Shah Farman, Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed, Minister for Communication Murad Saeed, Climate Change Advisor Malik Amin Aslam and others. He also inspected the special train prepared for facilitating Sikh pilgrims.
Addressing the inauguration ceremony, the prime minister said Main Line-1 (ML-1) project will modernise the railway system and accelerate economic activity in the country. The prime minister said the multi-billion dollar project will be executed with the cooperation of China and the distance between Karachi and Lahore will be covered in seven hours after completion.
He said that China has laid railways line across the country and taken effective steps to make it a fast transportation service to facilitate the common man. He said the Pakistan Railways will play an important role in the economic development of the country.
PM Imran Khan said the project will create massive job opportunities and will significantly contribute to economic development. He said railway is a facility used for travelling by ordinary people but was unfortunately not developed by the previous governments.
He said the government will improve the religious places of minorities in order to increase the arrival of foreign tourists. He said that many holy places of Sikhs are located in Pakistan and the federal government will provide maximum facilities to the pilgrims.
The prime minister said with the upgraded Hasan Abdal Railway Station will now provide better facilities to all the passengers including Sikh pilgrims. He said the country is heading in the right direction as all economic indicators are on the positive trajectory.
Railways Minister Sheikh Rasheed said that guest houses were constructed at the railway stations for Sikh pilgrims. He said that the development work on ML-1 project had been initiated 16 years ago but has now been approved and 90 percent local labour will be recruited for the project.
The minister said that the railway sector suffered a financial loss due to five-month closure of train operation, nevertheless, the technical allowance of 33,780 labourers was increased. He said that the department has a zero-tolerance policy on corruption.
The British-era railway station of Hasan Abdal has been reconstructed after 127 years with the cost of Rs300 million. The government took initiative to facilitate the masses and the Sikh pilgrims who reached there to visit their holy worship place Gurdwara Sri Panja Sahib.
