ML-1 railway project gets approval; will create 150,000 jobs: Rasheed

KARACHI: Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rasheed has said that the biggest-ever ML-1 railway project in the history of Pakistan was approved by the federal government that will create 150,000 jobs, ARY News reported on Wednesday.

Sheikh Rasheed said in a statement that the approval of ML-1 railway line project was pending since 13 years. He gave credit to Prime Minister Imran Khan for making a progress in the mega railway project.

He highlighted that all railway crossings will be removed after the completion of ML-1 project, whereas, the development work will commence in this year. The journey time between Lahore and Karachi will be shrunk to seven hours; 2.5 hours between Rawalpindi and Lahore and 2 hours between Multan and Lahore besides increasing the trains’ speed up to 160 kilometres per hour.

The railway minister expressed hopes that the mega project will bring an economic revolution in the country. He vowed that ML-1 project will be completed at earliest.

Earlier in the day, the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) approved ML-1 project to be completed at the cost of over $6.8 billion to upgrade 2,655 kilometres long railway track into three phases.