PESHAWAR, Sept 12: The Pakistan Railways has reduced its revenue losses from Rs2.63 billion to Rs510 million during the financial years 1999-2000 and 2001-2002 and would soon start earning profit.

This was stated by General Manager of Pakistan Railways, Iqbal Samad Khan, while talking to Dawn after inaugurating the computerized reservation office at the Cantonment railway station here on Thursday.

The GM said that despite the rise in diesel prices, which had put extra financial burden of Rs180 million annually, the railway department covered the loses through seven per cent increase in fares and 21 per cent in freights.

Samad Khan, dispelled the impression that Peshawar Division was being merged into Rawalpindi Division. “Yes, we have shrunk the jurisdiction of Peshawar Division, but it was an administrative adjustment, and there is no plan of a complete merger.”

Earlier, the GM railway opened the new reservation office.

The new reservation system is based on the main server of Karachi, Lahore and Rawalpindi. All these four reservation offices are now connected through routers operating on dedicated lines provided by PTCL with 64 KBS download speed. The officials say that the benefit of linking up all the four reservation offices is that if a passenger wants to travel to Lahore, and onwards by some other train, he can get the reservation done in Peshawar.

The reservation offices at Quetta, Multan, Sukkur, Hyderabad and Faisalabad would also be computerized soon, said senior railway officials.

The GM railways informed that Pakistan Railways had launched Karakoram Express train three time a week between Karachi and Lahore, which would be made a daily service by December 2002, when 26 more Chinese coaches would be added.

“The remaining 135 coaches would arrive in SKD and CKD condition and would be fabricated and built at the Carriage Factory in Islamabad by the end of next year,” he maintained.

He said that Pakistan Railways had planned to run a train daily between Peshawar and Karachi via Rawalpindi, after these coaches were built in Carriage Factory. The train would consist of air-conditioned and economy class coaches.