The railway line was made impassable following heavy rains that hit the country in January this year washing away Nansadi Bridge in the process.

Meanwhile, people from the lower shire who mainly depend on train to transport their produces to Blantyre have complained that CEAR is deliberately taking longer to rehabilitate the line as it is not among its priority areas due to the amount of income it brings.

However, CEAR communications officer Chisomo Mwamadi insists that his company is working hard to have the train back on its rail.

“It’s not true that we are not putting all the required efforts into the project because it doesn’t bring us much income. On the contrary, our core function is to serve people and not only to make profits, that’s the reason we have invited assessors from Brazil to look into the project,” said Mwamadi.

He said his company is looking for a permanent solution to the problem because a great part of the railway network was damaged during the last raining season and they don’t want that to happen again.

Mwamadi was however non-committal on how long the project is going to take before being completed saying there is much work that is to be done.

“We are currently not sure on the duration of the project because our assessors are still working on the ground, but our customers will have to wait a little longer,” added Mwamadi.

Recently Mwamadi was quoted as saying the rehabilitation works will cost the company billions.