NEWS - Officials discuss Trans-Asia

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Subject: NEWS - Officials discuss Trans-Asian rail project 

Officials discuss Trans-Asian rail project 

                     NEW DELHI, AUG. 10. India has taken another step in
the direction of building the much talked about Trans-Asian Rail (TAR)
                     corridor connecting Asia with Europe. 

                     The TAR project consists of building rail-land
bridges - divided into three corridors for providing long-distance
internatio- 

                     nal surface transport links between the two
continents.India is to form the southern corridor of the project linking
Singapore to
                     Turkey via Myanmar, Bangladesh, Pakistan and Iran.
The northern and central corridors will pass through China. 

                     The second meeting of the southern corridor task
force covering India, Bangladesh and Iran met here yesterday to
familiarise
                     its rail managers with one another's operational
characteristics and maintenance philosophies in the areas of rail
tracks,
                     rolling stock, signalling train and crew
scheduling. However, Pakistan, a member of the southern corridor task
force, did not
                     attend the meeting, official sources said. 

                     Officials of the Paris-based International Union of
Railway (UIC) also attended the meeting, held under the presidentship of
the
                     Railway Board Chairman, Mr. V. K. Agarwal, the
sources said. 

                     The first meeting of the southern corridor task
force was held in Tehran from February 20 to 22. 

                     Mr. Agarwal told the meeting that globalisation of
economy had provided the participating countries ``a historic
opportunity'' to
                     develop partnership in providing long-distance
international surface transport links not only ``in our region but also
up to
                     Europe through the CIS nations.'' He said the UIC
had taken the lead in conceptualising and developing the idea of traffic
on
                     global rail corridors for international traffic. 

                     Mr. Agarwal said to enable the ``fructification of
these efforts in the shortest possible time,'' it was necessary that the
                     participating railway officials should discover
each others' working methods and working culture.'' 

                     Underlining the need for an early completion of the
TAR project, Mr. Agarwal said geopolitical developments in the region
                     would involve major transport flows from Asia,
south-west Asia, Korea and Japan to Europe and CIS countries via
southeast
                     Asia, middle- east and northwest China. 

                     Mr. Agarwal said trade between India and CIS
countries accounted for 24 per cent of overall exports and 19 per cent
imports
                     with containerisation potential of three to four
millions of traffic. He said that from inland locations in India via
Bandar Abbas to
                     Almatty in Kazakhastan, the average transit time
was 41 to 48 days with costs ranging from $ 6,500 to 7,000 for a 20-foot
                     container. 

                     But the rail corridors with road bridging over a
few existing gaps till rail links got established all along the routes
could provide
                     both speedier and more economical alternatives
which could be used to supplement the already congested sea mode to a
                     certain extent, Mr. Agarwal said. 

                     - PTI