Dear the Pakistan Locomotive factory have been producing the engines for years now. Technology have been acquired over the years from different vendors like Dalian Locomotives, Atranz,
General Electric and Hitachi!! We were already making the GE and Hitachi (which is no small name in this industry) for some years now and there is absolutely no way that these could not or should not have been made here as well. Yes we could have opted for a dozen or so engines to be brought in from US as make others at home.
Here is a list of few engines that have been rolled out from Risalpur over the years, note the GE ones in the list as well:
- 5 DE locomotives (2000 hp, Hitachi), 1993-94
- 18 DE locomotives (2000 hp, Hitachi), 1994-97
- Rehabilitation of 5 DE locomotives (2000 hp, GE), 1997–98
- 30 DE locomotives (3000 hp, GE & Atranz), 1999-01
- Rehabilitation of 21 DE locomotives (2000/2400 hp, GE), 2001-03
- 69 DE locomotives (2000 hp /3000 hp, Chinese), 2003–08
- 5 DE locomotives (3000 hp, Chinese), 2014–15
Making these new ones at Risalpur would have given us access to those 4000-4500 BHP tech as well and would have served us for the years to come.
I am not being critical for no reason at all sir. However it pains to see a report of this "achievement" running on the media along side a ticker of how our foreign exchange reserves are falling and how we have reached the historic high of foreign debts!! ALL THIS COULD HAVE BEEN DONE AT HOME, Bringing in technology. creating jobs and may be even saving a few $$ considering how we would have made these locally going forward.
I hope you understand what i am trying to say.