TEHRAN - Deputy Transport and Urban Development Minister Amir-Mahmoud Ghaffari said on Saturday that the ministry plans to connect at least four provinces to the country’s national railway network by the end of the current Iranian calendar year (March 20, 2021).

“To increase the share of freight, passenger and transit transportation through railway, the Ministry of Transport and Urban Development has put a special program on the agenda for the current year, which includes connecting at least four provinces to the rail network,” ILNA quoted Ghaffari as saying.

According to the official, construction of 1,614 kilometers of railroads, as well as modernization, improvement and upgrading of the country’s freight, passenger and locomotive fleets with 130.7 trillion rials (about $3.11 billion) of funding are also among the projects that the ministry is pursuing in the current year.

The official noted that the Budget and Planning Organization (BPO) has so far allocated a total of 55.49 trillion rials (about $1.3 billion) of the required funding for the implementation of the Transport Ministry’s development program, and the negotiations are underway for supplying the rest.

Expanded transportation via railway is, today, one of the major pillars of sustainable development for all countries; and it is why the governments usually allocate noticeable funds and resources to the development of the railway.

In Iran, the development of the railway network has been among the top-priority plans of the governments in recent years.

Back in April, the Iranian transport minister said 1,200 kilometers of railroads are going to be constructed across the country during the current Iranian calendar year (started on March 19).

Later in May, Kheirollah Khademi, the managing director of Iran’s Construction and Development of Transportation Infrastructures Company (CDTIC), announced that seven prioritized railway projects with a total length of 1,660 kilometers will be inaugurated by the end of the Iranian calendar year 1400 (March 2022).

The country’s Sixth Five-Year National Development Plan (2016-2021) has envisaged that the railway will account for at least 30 percent of cargo transportation and 20 percent of passenger transportation in Iran. Such a target requires at least 850 trillion rials (about $20.238 billion) of investment.

EF/MA