In order to start closed services in the country, Pakistan Railways is once again opting for Indian Railways’ locomotives.
Pakistan Railways is in ‘immediate need’ of locomotives to start services for as many as 128 passenger trains, which have been shut down due to the unavailability of train engines in the country.
Currently, it has only 76 locomotives in working condition out of 520.
Last year Pakistan proposed to buy/lease 50 train engines from India, but Indian Railways rejected their proposal on grounds of the corporate risk involved, and also because of the high domestic demand for train engines in India.
This time Pakistan Railways has increased their order proposal and is looking to buy or lease more than 100 locomotives.
However, Indian Railways officials are ‘still not interested in doing business with Pakistan, unless the neighbouring country provides advances commitments for simplifying Visa procedures and for providing diplomatic immunity for Indian engineers that will need to be deputed to that country as technical support staff’.
The engines that are considered in the offer are Wide Diesel Mixed 3000 hp (WDM 3D) type which cost approximately $1.3 million (Rs 7 crore) a unit, or WDM2, the rehabilitated type, which come at a lesser price of $1 million (Rs 4.5 crore) a unit. The option of offering old, retrofitted engines is also being considered.
Pakistan Railways have ‘failed to handle maintenance of train engines, either on account of financial crisis, non-availability of skilled manpower and no support from the Chinese suppliers who have sold engines to them’.
Indian Railways also have a shortage of locomotives and gets 500 new locomotives every year from its two train engines manufacturing units, as against the currently need 700 engines needed.
It currently operates has more than 10,212 locomotives, that include 4,214 electric and 6,000 diesel engines.
