LAHORE, July 2: The marketing department of the Pakistan Railways has proposed changes in its strategy to lease out assets of the institution to private sector.

The department has sent proposals to the Railway Board for formal sanctioning ‘to devolve its responsibility and speed up working on various projects’.

Under the new approach, a ‘specific path line’s approval while endeavouring for the commercial exploitation drill’ has been sought.

The Directorate of Marketing, during commercial exploitation process, has been under criticism for not following certain patterned path and direction lines that involved various relevant desks for finalizing a venture in the non-core areas of railways.

Marketing director Syed Azmat Hussain, who has assumed charge around a month ago, believes that besides curbing undue criticism by other departments his department would also hold them equally accountable for the business activities to be undertaken to generate revenue from ‘non-rail related areas’.

The exercise will also speed up procedural working on various ventures as time limits for the departments involved have been set under the proposal, he adds.

No railway employee would be displaced from his official residence or colony, being earmarked for commercialization, until a replacement was offered to him.

“The investor interested in a piece of railway land will be responsible for providing the replacement.”

Meanwhile, a press release says that the railway earned Rs13.256 billion income during the first 11 months of the 2002-03 financial year.

In the budget, target for the period under consideration had been set at Rs12.91 billion.

From passenger service, it earned Rs6.935 billion while its freight service fetched Rs4.437 billion. A sum of Rs1.885 billion was generated through parcel service.

Under its austerity drive, the railway administration managed to curb its expenditure to around Rs12.94 billion against the budgetary allocation of Rs14.66 billion for the period, the release said.