Federal Executive Council, FEC, has approved the contract for the feasibility study of standard rail gauge system on six rail corridors in the country.
Briefing State House correspondents after yesterday’s Council meeting, the Minister of Information, Labaran Maku, disclosed that the project would cost N1.3billion, adding that the rail corridors were identified under the 25-year strategic railway development policy of the Federal Government.
The Minister of Transport, Sen. Idris Umar, said that the contract include studies of the viability of the rail project and identification of business and economic activities along the selected corridors.
The feasibility study will also involve identification of the rail stations along the route, as well as come up with the environmental impact assessment.
He disclosed that the total length of the six rail lines will be 4430 kilometers and they will be completed within six months.
The corridors include Kano/ Dai/Jimbia an approximate distance of 354KM, Ilela/Sokoto/Jega / Kontagora, 408km, Aba/ Ikot Ekpene/ Itu/ Uyo / Odukpani/Calabar, covering a total distance of 340km, Kano/ Nguru/ Geshua/ Damaturu/ Maiduguri/ Gamburu Ngala, covering 707 Km, Calabar/ Ikom/ Obudu/ Ogoja/ Katsina Ala/ Wukari/ Jalingo/Yola/ Maiduguri, 1669km.
The last of the corridor is the rail line from Port Harcourt/ Aba/ Umuahia/ Enugu/ Lafia/ Jos/ Bauchi/ Biu/ Maidiguri, 550km.
According to him, the seven corridors earlier awarded have been completed and contract will be awarded soon for the construction of standard rail line.
He added that the rail corridors were carefully selected to cover areas with strong economic potentials including mining, petro-chemicals, solid minerals deposits, agricultural zones, linkages to airports and state capitals across the country.
“We want to ensure that within the next 25 years, government will put in more effort to ensure the development of areas through government funding and through public private partnership arrangements”
“The scope of work to be carried out by the consultants will include detailed studies for them to establish the viability of these projects, bring out the technical, economic and financial models to establish the viability of the project”
“They are also to provide proposal for the alignment and connections of the urban and commercial settlements along the proposed routes”
“They are equally to carry out detail surveys and design of the selected alignments to identify potential train stations and other rail base infrastructure to incorporate them in the design.”
Others include the environmental impact assessment and identify the rail stations, workshops and other rail base infrastructure along the route, including engineering design and the bill of engineering measurement and the tender document for the award of the contract in due course.
Minister of Trade and Industry, Dr. Olusegun Aganga, announced that the United Nation’s Industrial Development Organisation, UNIDO, has established two regional offices in Nigeria and Ethiopia and placed the two countries under the accelerated intervention programme for industrial development.
The project is in recognition of the potential and the industrial development efforts of the two countries in Africa.