Residents of more than 100 quarters next to the Gujranwala City railway station on Wednesday night staged a protest against the disconnection of electricity for six days.
Vice Station Master Muhammad Zufiqar said he had sent a request to the Railways Headquarters in Lahore in this regard. However, he said, no action had yet been taken by officials at the head office. He said he could only ensure meanwhile that trains’ operation went on smoothly. “We have a power generator which is switched on according to the schedule so that trains coming and leaving on time are not affected,” he said.
Zulfiqar said their supply of diesel fuel for the power generator was limited and he was not sure how many days it would last. “The train operations are going on for the time being but our workers are getting irritated because they don’t have any electricity at their houses for six days now,” he said. He said this was a department to department matter and that authorities concerned needed to take immediate action. “Gujranwala is a major station. We have 60,000 to 70,000 passengers arriving and leaving for various destinations everyday,” he said.
Zulfiqar said no more than Rs30,000 to Rs40,000 had been collected per day in the last six days. He said on regular days between Rs150,000 and Rs250,000 was the average revenue collected at the station through sale of tickets. He said tickets for the nearby stations were available at the station. “For passengers who want to travel to Karachi or Peshawar, they needed prior reservation,” he said. He said because computers were shut for the last six days no reservations were being made only tickets for nearby stations were being issued.
Besides, he said, the water tanker in the trains could no longer be filled at Gujranwala station. He said the nearest station where water was available for a train headed to Lahore was Wazirabad. “It is around 35 kilometres from here,” he said.
The telephone connection for the railway station was also suspended on Tuesday for non-payment of bills, he said.
Clerks Rana Amjad and Muhammad Iqbal said there was no electricity and water at their homes for six days. “How can the administration expect us to work no power at our homes? Temperatures at day time are over 45 degrees Celsius these days,” Iqbal said.
He said he was returning home after midnight for some days so that he did not have to face his children and wife. He said workers planned to go on strike and boycott work if the situation continued for longer.
A protest was staged by residents of housing quarters two days ago, he said. “Some divisional engineers of the Railways were travelling through train from Gujranwala. We staged a sit-in in front of the train and prevented it from leaving the station for nearly two hours,” he said.
He said they had assured them that they would forward their complaint to the head office but no action had yet been taken.
Published in The Express Tribune, June 11th, 2011.
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