LAHORE: Minister for Railways Azam Khan Swati has decided to not use the saloon dedicated for him and directed the Chief Executive Officer / Senior General Manager of the department to utilise it for commercial purposes to minimise the losses and increase revenue.

He has also directed CEO Nisar Ahmad Memon to immediately issue a notification to the effect, Dawn has learnt.

“Notification be issued that from now onward there will not be any assigned saloon kept and standing for the Pakistan Railways (PR). So each and every saloon (including the one dedicated / assigned for the minister) be used for commercial purpose to minimise losses and increase revenue of the PR,” Mr Swati directed the CEO in a text message on Friday.

CEO Mr Memon told Dawn that he would issue the notification on Saturday (today). “He (the minister) doesn’t want to use the saloon assigned to him since he is of the view that it should be used for commercial purpose to earn revenue rather than keeping it standby for him,” he added.

The PR has already started implementing a plan to use saloons (other than those assigned to the minister and other senior officials) for commercial purposes. The department has sought expression of interest from the private parties for outsourcing the commercial management of air-conditioned saloons by attaching these with Karakoram express initially.

The objective of the plan is not only to earn revenue or reduce losses but also to provide better passenger facilitation to the travelling public.

“We have 4/5 special saloons, including the one allocated for the minister. The others are allocated for the senior officers including the chairman, Federal Government Inspector Of Railways (FGIR) and CEO who use them whenever they go for inspections,” Mr Memon said.

“These all are equipped with various facilities such as bedroom, meeting room / TV lounge, washroom, phone etc,” he said. He said besides these, the PR has over 20 other saloons which are also being used by the officers (other than those named above) for inspection purposes. Since these saloons have attained their age, they need to be upgraded. “At present, they cannot be used for commercial purpose in high speed express trains. So will try to attach them with low-speed trains (90/95km per hour),” he said.

The CEO said the PR had almost restored its passenger train operations fully as 76 (up/down trains) are currently running on various routes. Only few trains, which are in loss, are not on track these days, he said.

Meanwhile, the minister has reportedly empowered the station masters to independently deal with the entire affairs related to improvement in the passengers’ facilitation, business and conservation of the station buildings built during the British era.

Published in Dawn, February 27th, 2021