Saturday 16 November 2024 - 06:57

Date: 01 December 2019 , 02:00

News ID: 7660

NEWS SERVICE: TRANSPORTATION and INFRASTRUCTURE

Rail and Railways Rail & Railways

Rail industry development plan to be drafted within a month

Iran’s Deputy Industry, Mining and Trade Minister for Industry Affairs Mehdi Sadeqi Niaraki said the draft for the country’s rail industry development plan will be prepared within in a month, ILNA reported.

Speaking in the first meeting of the rail industry policy-making council, the official said forming this council was a necessity for taking necessary measures regarding policy making, planning and integrating the country’s capabilities and capacities for the development of the rail industry.

Expanded transportation via railway is today one of the major pillars of sustainable development for the countries; and the Iranian governments has allocated significant funds and resources to development of the country’s railway in recent years.

Currently, Iran has 13,000 kilometers of railway laid, and based on the country’s Sixth National Five-Year Development Plan (2016-2021), the railway network is due to expand to more than 16,400 kilometers.

Based on the mentioned plan, the railway will account for at least 30 percent of cargo transportation and 20 percent of passenger transportation in the country by 2021.

Back in July, Islamic Republic of Iran Railways (known as RAI) Head Saeed Rasouli stated said boosting the efficiency of national railway network is a top agenda for RAI in the current Iranian calendar year (ends on March 19, 2020).

“To materialize this target, connecting the cargo hubs to the national network via building 512 kilometers of railway is being followed up”, the official said.

Rasouli also announced that his organization and the ministry of industry have come to an agreement on supporting domestic production in the railway sector.
He said that a task force has been set up to follow up the issue.

source: Tehran Times