BADIN: The Badin Express, relaunched in 2008, has been suspended since June 8 reportedly to save the Pakistan Railways further losses.

Officials on Monday said that the train service was stopped owing to unavailability of a locomotive. The locomotive made available to the Badin Express has reportedly been shifted to the Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas train.

The Badin Express was relaunched on an initiative taken by former National Assembly speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza to meet a long-standing demand of the people of Badin, particularly traders, who had to travel frequently between the cities and towns connected through the service.

The PR had spent Rs150 million to restore the Badin-Hyderabad track, which had been rendered unusable due to suspension of the train service for a long period before the service was relaunched in 2008.

Although it is officially stated that the Sindh sector is at present running short of locomotives, sources in the PR say that the Badin Express was a loss-making venture and, therefore, the athorities concerned had to suspend the service after the accumulative losses ran into millions.

The sources, however, said that unavailability of a locomotive for this particular train service was also a reason behind the decision.

Published in Dawn, June 24th , 2014