Making it harder to wave to the train

Pakistan Railways losing millions annually, as sale of platform tickets at the Lahore City Railway Station suspended.

LAHORE:

Pakistan Railways (PR) is losing millions of rupees annually, as sale of platform tickets at the Lahore City Railway Station has been suspended on the request of Railway Police inspector general for security reasons.

Railways police requested the railways administration to suspend the platform visits two and half years ago due to a security threat. The station continues to disallow ticket sales. Last year PR lost Rs7.5 million in platform tickets from the Lahore station. The administration had previously awarded a platform ticket contract to local contractors through tender each year.

The main concern in stopping platform ticket sales was security. The measure was taken to avoid the entrance of unnecessary persons at the platforms. Tight security was initially observed after the decision but the security detail has lost vigour over time. There are five entrances to the Lahore railway station besides several secondary entrances where there are no security checks in place. “The unguarded entrances are a much bigger threat to security than the platform tickets,” said passenger Kamran.

Those who come to see off their families or friends to railways station have criticised the decision. Anwar Ali, who was waiting for the train along with his family, told The Express Tribune that the guards were not allowing him to enter the platform. “They said I couldn’t go without a ticket and then refused to issue me one. Finally I had to buy a Rs30 ticket to Raiwind junction to see off my family safely,” he said.

A ticket collector at one of the entrances said “Platform tickets amount to hard cash. We are losing out on it. The PR can run a passenger train between nearby junctions from the revenues from platform tickets,” he said. “Now that we can’t issue platform tickets we sometimes allow a person to enter the passenger and other times we demand they buy a ticket,” he added. The collector said that all the suspension of tickets was doing was inconveniencing passengers and their relatives. “It has nothing to do with improving security,” he said.

PR official M Mohsin said that the sale of platform tickets was suspended on the IG’s request.

“We stopped selling the tickets because we were ordered to not because we wanted to. We are planning to reopen the facility and double the ticket price so PR can generate some revenue,” he said.

Mohsin said that the matter had been forwarded to Railways chairman and that a decision in this regard was expected with in a couple of days. Police officials are still recommending that security concerns should prevail. “There is no point to issuing these tickets because it makes it much harder to monitor the comings and goings of people. Security should be the first priority,” said police official Rehman Shabbir.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30^th, 2011.