LAHORE: The seven operational divisions of the Pakistan Railways (PR) have yet to clear Rs1161.641 million dues under various heads of station outstanding up to the first quarter of the ongoing fiscal year.

The anomaly has been pointed out in a letter sent by the PR financial adviser and chief accounts officer (revenue) to the chief executive officer of the organisation, the Railways Board member finance and other principal officers.

The outstanding sum included admitted debits of Rs48.201 million, short remittance amounting to Rs28.168 million, parcel and freight outstanding of Rs1021.720 million, demurrage and wharfage outstanding of Rs35.604 million in all the operational divisions.

Also dispatched to the divisional superintendents of Karachi, Lahore, Rawalpindi, Peshawar, Quetta , Multan and Sukkur in December last year, the letter had sought clearance of the outstanding amount, especially the admitted debits, which are required to be recovered from the staff concerned within seven days.

The PR commercial manual says station outstanding is the amount for which a station master becomes accountable up to the close of the month as the liability is not liquidated either by remittance of cash or vouchers or by taking special credits as authorised under the rules. Admitted debits are the amount which are agreed as debit by the staff concerned and are raised after checking of monthly returns by accounts officers (revenue) due to short or non-account amounts. Short remittance is the amount collected by the division officials but not deposited with the main cash office.

According to the letter, Karachi division has an outstanding amount of Rs1026.579 million (Rs32.095 million in passenger and Rs994.484 million in goods), Lahore division Rs27.104 million (Rs11.162 million in passenger, Rs3.952 million in goods and Rs11.990 million in dry port), Rawalpindi division (Rs5.969 million in passenger, Rs32.572 million in goods and Rs0.013 million in dry port), Peshawar division Rs2.226 million (Rs0.857 in passenger and Rs1.369 million in dry port), Quetta division Rs14.368 million (Rs13.127 million in passenger, Rs1.226 million in goods and Rs0.015 million in dry port), Multan division Rs47.277 million (Rs8.855 million in passenger, Rs38.053 million in goods and Rs0.360 million in dry port) and Sukkur Rs5.538 million (Rs4.313 million in passenger and Rs1.225 million in goods).

Published in Dawn, March 11th, 2016