A large number of trains have suspended their operations due to what the railway minister said ‘shortage of locomotives’ and heavy liabilities in terms of POL. —File photo

ISLAMABAD: The government has come out with another bailout package of Rs 4 billion for the Pakistan Railways in an attempt to revive the ailing organisation.

The decision was approved by the Central Development Working party (CDWP) at its meeting on Friday with an emphasis that the Railways should augment its freight operation, which had come to a halt due to the miserable financial plight of the department, a member told Dawn.

The bailout package covers procurement of locomotives and infrastructure improvement.

The bailout package is in addition to a recently announced Rs6 billion package.

The meeting was apprised that over the last decade PRs has received more than Rs200 billion from the government putting a heavy burden on national exchequer despite the fact that performance of PRs has been deteriorating causing huge annual losses.

A large number of trains have suspended their operations due to what the railway minister said ‘shortage of locomotives’ and heavy liabilities in terms of POL.

The CDWP was also informed that major local and international private sector investors have already shown keen interest to invest and operate freight trains and pay charges to PRs. “In this way Railways can earn huge profits running in billions of rupees annually. However, the case is pending with ministry of railways for a long time,” the official said.

It was also informed to CDWP that National Logistic Cell (NLC) has been given a contract to repair of existing locomotives.

The CDWP suggested the representatives of PRs that freight operations, which are the main source of revenue for PRs, have decreased significantly due to inefficiency as a result more and more freight was expected to be shifted to road transport. The meeting agreed that the land owned by railways could also be a huge source of revenue for commercial purposes but was also not being used properly.

“Inefficiencies of the management of Railways have already brought the whole organization to stand-still as the organization will face problem again next month to pay salaries of staff,” the official said.

The CDWP observed that ministry of railways is appeared to attract investment despite instructions by President Asif Ali Zardari in a recently chaired meeting on railways reforms and instead the focus is on procuring locomotives.

It was informed in the meeting that already large number of locomotives procured in the past were out-of-order due to poor quality of locomotives, use of poor quality diesel and lack of maintenance.

The meeting observed that by procuring locomotives again it will open channel for corruption and wasting public funds.

On the advice of President Zardari the government has recently provided Rs1 billion funds to the PRs for the salary of staff.

In a recent meeting in the presidency the president advised the government to arrange a loan of Rs6 billion for locomotive repairs and purchase of new locomotives.