ISLAMABAD:
Deterioration of Pakistan Railways is a threat to trade which should be tackled immediately, according to the Pakistan Economy Watch (PEW).
Weak, unreliable, and outdated railways can be privatised to improve its performance, said PEW President Dr Murtaza Mughal on Wednesday.
Reduced allocations and internal inefficiencies has plummeted freight share to 4% from 73 per cent and passenger share to 8% from 41%.
The productivity of Pakistan Railways freight services is around one-tenth of Chinese Railways, one-fourth of Indian Railways, and one-third of Thai Railways, he said.
Improved transportation services can help improve trade with the rest of the world, he said.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 10th, 2011.
COMMENTS (5)
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@grain2315: Railways have a staf of 80000 and number of pensioners is 10 times that. Can you do anything about the excessive pension liability? Railways are overstafed? Can anyone sack the excess staff? No. There is corruption from top to bottom from procurement to ticket checkers? Can you stop it? No. The government does not allow proper pricing of passenger services and then fails to pay railways for that amount. Can you do something about that? No.
IT is easy to blame - difficult to do.
@grain2315: so how exactly you are going to catch corrupt ticket checkers in trains running between karachi and other cities. you cant.
when cake is cut its evenly distributed.
top management cant do anything in it
how can improve our society
please let me run the railways and i will show how its done,, the investment will be organic that will generate enough income become prosperous again... its the cheapest form of transport.. if the current incompetants running this organisation cannot do the job.. why are they in these jobs,, how much have they been paid, how much have they squandered, where is the money that is the organisation?? i can be contacted as above...
And who exactly in their right mind would buy it?