April 15, 2002	Monday	Safar 1, 1423

Pakistan Railway's top bosses claim to have achieved a turned-around of the organization, making it a profitable, commercial venture.

Unlike, Wapda headed by a serving three-star general, Railways are being run by two three stars retired generals as the minister for railways and communication and secretary/chairman, Railway Board, and both are located in Islamabad/Rawalpindi.

The minister is more vocal in making claims and taking credit for doing what others could not do earlier.

But what are the facts and figures on the ground? If all these are taken into consideration, the Railways are certainly not back on the track and have a long way to go before it could be termed as a public sector organization financially, commercially and rolling stock-wise efficient and capable of delivering the goods.

The facts and figures taken from official documents speak volumes for regarding the mess the Railways has been in for years together like many other public organizations. Those at the helm of its affairs should concentrate on doing some concrete work instead of going around and making tall claims.The Pakistan Railways had lot of overage sleepers and rails on which it was running the operations across the country. Kilometre (km) age of overage sleepers and rails stood at 4907 and 5042 track km respectively as of June 30, 2001.

According to the ministry of communications and railways own record, the overage rails and sleepers would increase to 5972 and 5820 track km respectively by June 2006 if no renewals were carried between 2001 and 2006.

These and some other relative facts and figures were mentioned in Pakistan Railways Project for the rehabilitation and improvement of its track which was to be implemented over a period of five years in phased manner i.e. 2001-06 at an estimated cost of Rs29.05 billion including the foreign exchange component of Rs 10.06 billion.

According to the Planning Commission sources, the project "Rehabilitation and Improvement of Track on Pakistan Railways" envisaged complete track renewals (CTR) of 1790 km, sleeper renewal (SR) of 225 km, rail renewal of 25 km on primary A 1881 km CTR on primary B 324 km CTR on secondary 307 km CTR on territory routes; comprising in overall 4327 km of rail renewals and 4527 kms sleeper renewals between July 2001 to June 2006. The methodology proposed for the project implementation was 1692 km of primary A line (including 1628 km double line from Landhi, Karachi, to Lodharan) would be replaced by new UIC-54 rails, pre-stressed concrete sleepers (PCS), Vossloh Fittings (both imported and local) over 12 inches ballast cushion. The rails released from primary A sections would be lifted as such and relaid on primary B and those released from primary B would be relaid on secondary and territory lines.

And, what had transpired in the meeting of the Central Development Working Party (CDWP) when the project was taken up for consideration in its meeting sometime back made quite