LAHORE: Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid says anything except Nawaz Sharif or Asif Ali Zardari-led government is possible in the country.

“Anything can happen in this country but the government of Nawaz Sharif or Asif Zardari is not possible again. I am not seeing any change in the politics due to the protests announced by the opposition,” he told journalists at a press conference here on Saturday.

“It is the right of the opposition to protest. But Nawaz and Zardari cannot come into power again. PM Imran Khan’s plus point is that his opponents are thieves,” he added.

He said whatever Shahbaz Sharif did, it benefitted Nawaz Sharif as the former always played on both sides of the wicket.

Sees no impact of opposition protest

While paying tribute to army’s professional skills and sacrifices, he said Gen Bajwa was the man who avoided war between the two countries.

He said the prime minister would take the country out of crisis after one year. “Though they (the PTI people) claim that they will improve the country’s economic situation after three months, I think it will take one year,” he said.

Asked why PM’s special assistant Naeemul Haq continues to enjoy VVIP protocol despite the premier’s claims about eliminating such culture, the minister said: “He (Naeemul Haq) is a sick man. Please leave him.”

Talking about media reports about lowering of the Pakistan Railways’ oil stocks, he dispelled the impression and claimed that his department had sufficient stock for five days. Moreover, the oil for another 15 days would be received soon.

He said the railways during last 10 days of Ramazan earned Rs1 billion by transporting around two million passengers to various destinations. Thal and Kohat express trains that have capacity of 600 and 670 passengers respectively carried 3,400 passengers in all.

The PR had not spent anything to date for the purchase of new passenger coaches and the old ones had been refurbished and used for running new trains, he said.

“Therefore, at present, we have no coaches. For this we are making a viable tendering procedure. And for buying new coaches, we will not adopt the single tendering method,” he said. He claimed that since he took over the control of the ministry, the PR had saved around two million litres of oil. Similarly, 30 new trains had been launched within a short span of time.

“We have decided to upgrade three railways stations -- Cantonment, Kot Lakhpat and Raiwind. In this way we will be able to reduce passengers’ load on Lahore’s main railway station,” the minister said.

Mr Rashid said the railways had earned Rs30 million by imposing penalty / fine on the ticketless passengers.

As for the allocation of budget for the PR, he said that under the PSDP of 2019-20 budget, a sum of Rs16 billion was being allocated. “We have also received 15pc of the total budget of the ML-1 (main line-1) project.”

Answering a question, he said Sir Syed express train was ready for launch by the end of this month. “We wish that the prime minster inaugurate this new train on June 30,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 9th, 2019