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| Emerging threat to Kashmir, Ladakh | | Sino-Pak rail project up to strategic Khunjerab | | BL KAK
New Delhi| February 24
An alarming development across the Kashmir-Ladakh border: Beijing and Islamabad have joined hands to lay railway track up to 4,730-meter-high Khunjerab. This will link Pakistan with China's rail network.
By expanding its stake in Pakistan's rail sector, China is poised to exploit the country's advantageous geographic position--strategically located at the confluence of South, Central and West Asia. Beijing's involvement in several rail projects in Pakistan is motivated primarily by commercial considerations, but it also sees distinct advantages for its improved transportation and access to Central Asia and the Persian Gulf states. A reliable network of road and rail links can only ensure China's access to energy-rich central Asia, serving it both commercially and strategically.
Early this week, Islamabad awarded a Rs 72 million (1.2 million US dollars) contract to an international consortium to carry out a feasibility study for establishing a rail link with China to boost trade relations between the two countries. The study will cover a 750-kilometer section between Havellian and the 4,730-meter-high Khunjerab crossing over Mansehra district and the Karakoram Highway. Havellian is already linked with the rest of the rail network in Pakistan; the Chinese will lay track within their territory up to Khunjerab, linking Pakistan with China's rail network.
In the first week of this month, Pakistan Railways and China's Dong Fang Electric Supply Corp signed an agreement for establishing a rail link between Havellian and Khunjerab. Ingenieurgemeinschaft Lasser-Feizlmayr (ILF), a consortium of consultant engineers from Austria, Germany and Pakistan, is to submit its report to the Ministry of Railways in nine months. It is most likely that the distance between Havellian and Khunjerab will involve the construction of tunnels. The ILF services encompass both the construction of new high-speed railway lines and the modernization of existing lines for standard-gauge and narrow-gauge railways in addition to tunnels.
Reports from across the border say that China is actively involved in the development of Pakistan railways and for the past five years it has been increasing its stake in the country's communication sector. Pakistan railways is a state-owned company that provides an important mode of transportation in the furthest corners of the country. The freight-passenger earnings comprise 50 per cent of the railway's total revenue. Pakistan railways carries 65 million passengers annually and operates 228 mail, express and passenger trains daily. It introduced new mail and express trains between major terminals from 2003 to 2005.
Pakistan railways recently entered several agreements with Chinese railway companies for its development. In 2001, Pakistan railways signed a 91.89 million dollar contract with China National Machinery Import and Export Corp for the manufacture of 175 new high-speed passenger coaches. The project was funded by Exim Bank China on a supplier credit basis. Forty completely built passenger coaches have been received and 105 will be assembled in Pakistan railways' carriage factory by next December. The technology transfer for these coaches has been obtained from China's Chang Chun Car Co.
Some in Pakistan have been criticizing the faulty locomotives purchased by Pakistan railways from Dong Fang Electric Corp of China. Under another agreement signed in 2004 with China National Machinery and Equipment Group, the Chinese company is to undertake the construction of Corridor 1 of a light-rail mass-transit system for Karachi that is intended to serve 4 million commuters. The project will cost about 568 million dollars and take four and a half years to complete. The contract has been awarded on a build-operate-transfer basis and comprises five corridors.
China is going to be the beneficiary of Gwadar's most accessible international trade routes to the Central Asian republics and Xinjiang. By extending its East-West Railway from the Chinese border city of Kashi to Peshawar in Pakistan's northwest, Beijing can receive cargo to and from Gwadar along the shortest route, from Karachi to Peshawar. The rail network could also be used to supply oil from the Persian Gulf to Xinjiang. Pakistan's internal rail network can also provide China with rail access to Iran.
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