PR in financial quagmire amid floods

Official says train operations to resume upon receipt of satisfactory report

LAHORE:

As Pakistan Railways faces heavy damages to its infrastructure due to floods, it is also struggling to pay the salaries of its officers and employees.

The department has curtailed the benefits of its high-ranking officials and is also utilising fuel from one channel to another, besides restraining unnecessary stopping of engines.

The recent floods damaged the railway infrastructure massively, bringing train operations to a halt in various parts of the country. This led to financial losses as well, as the department had to reimburse tickets.

Sources said that the financial losses are increasing day by day, with the total hit amounting to Rs16 billion so far. In these conditions, Pakistan Railways is finding it difficult to pay its employees and some of them have not even received this month’s salary.

The mechanical department is diverting unused diesel from the halted trains to keep the engines running on branch lines. The department has also decided to impose fines on concerned officials for keeping engines stopped unnecessarily.

Pakistan Railways is also curtailing unnecessary expenditures until the full restoration of train operations. No TA/DA will be given to any officers to come and go to any other division if the train operations are not restored soon.

Until the train operations, including passenger and freight operations, are completely restored between, Lahore, Karachi, Sukkur and Quetta, the department will find it difficult to meet its revenue needs. Quetta division is currently cut off from the other divisions due to the collapse of two large and one small railway bridge in the former.

National Logistics Cell (NLC) will work in collaboration with railway engineers to reconstruct these bridges at the cost of Rs350 million in the next two months.

Additional General Manager Railway Infrastructure Arshad Salam Khattak said that the engineers are inspecting the damage caused to the track by flood water and train operations can only be resumed after a satisfactory report is received.