"The container service, transporting goods from the business hub of Ludhiana to Karachi dry port via the Fazilka railway junction not only offered a short route to Karachi (about 900 kms away), but also gave the railway a huge revenue from this route during the pre-partition days," says Fazilka-based veteran scholar and retired professor at IIT Roorkee, Dr Bhupinder Singh.

As per the history traced by the experts and this correspondent, during the 98 years of British rule in united Punjab from 1849 to 1947, they made the best use of the resources of the land of the five rivers. Queen Victoria brought several schemes after 1858 when the whole of the fertile sub-continent came under the British control. For transporting the British manufactured goods and export of raw material from India to England, their trade agencies and instincts made them lay the trunk line from Ludhiana to Karachi along the Sutlej river via Ferozepur-Fazilka -Minchnabad-Samarsatta-Bahawalpur-Hyderabad-Karachi in 1900.

Link: https://www.tribuneindia.com/2011/20111121/bathinda.htm#1