Rail diplomacy between India and Pakistan seems to be going off-track as Indian Railways remains indifferent to Islamabad’s proposal to take 50 train engines on lease from New Delhi, Indian media reported on Wednesday.
“Domestic demand remains high and any commitment to Pakistan at this stage would mean a compromise on domestic requirement,” said Rajeev Mehrotra, managing director of Rail India Technical and Economic Services, which supervises overseas operations. Earlier, Pakistan decided to hire 50 train engines from India to restart defunct train services. Over 300 of Pakistan Railways’ 500 locomotives are out of order, leading to a loss of Rs 25 billion a year, authorities said. In India, railway officials are not in favour of the deal with Pakistan, for the “corporate risk” it entails. “Relations with Pakistan being what they are, there will always remain the apprehension that India will not get its money back,” a railway ministry official said. The officials also said they had received no official communication on the proposal while external affairs ministry officials said they had “no idea”. The Indian Railways has 4,214 electric and 6,000 diesel engines. Two hundred engines roll out of each of its two public sector manufacturing units every year. It is massively short of its Vision 2020 target of 1,200 engines annually. But despite this, tenders for the supply of engines to Bangladesh and Myanmar are currently being processed.
Pakistan should buy some trains from India like Bangladesh and Myanmar does. These Chinese locomotives keep on breaking down.
A lease or credit transaction with PR would be considered very high risk (financially). A lease arrangement, in particular, is even higher risk because of poor maintenance record.
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