National News

ISLAMABAD, (APP): The government has planned to upgrade
and install railway track from Gwadar-Quetta-Jacobabad via Besima
tehsil in Balochistan, under China-Pak-Economic Corridor (CPEC).
Under the project, a 560 kilometres track will be laid from
Bostan-Kotla Jam on the main line-II via Zhob and Dera Ismail Khan
and another 682 kilometres track to be laid from Havelian to Khunjerab, sources in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
The upgradation of 1,872 kilometres track from Karachi to
Peshawar via Kotri, Multan, Lahore and Rawalpindi (including Taxila-
Havelian) – along with dualization of the track from Shahdara to
Peshawar – will also be carried out, they added.
They said that 1,254 kilometres of railway track from Kotri to
Attock City via Dadu, Larkana, Jacobabad, Dera Ghazi Khan, Bhakkar
and Kundian will be upgraded.
It is pertinent to mention here that the CPEC is a 3,000-
kilometer network of roads, railways and pipelines to transport oil
and gas from Gwadar Port to Kashgar city, northwestern China’s
Xinjiang Uygur autonomous region.
An official agreement on the corridor was signed between the
two countries in May last year during Chinese President historic
visit to Pakistan.
The project links China’s strategy to develop its western
region with Pakistan’s focus on boosting its economy, including the
infrastructure construction of Gwadar Port, together with some
energy cooperation and investment programs.
It also involves road and railway construction including an
upgrade of the 1,300-km Karakoram Highway, the highest paved
international road in the world which connects China and Pakistan
across the Karakoram mountains.
The CPEC will reduce China’s routes of oil and gas imports
from Africa and the Middle East by thousands of kilometers, making
Gwadar a potentially vital link in China’s supply chain.