ISLAMABAD, Nov 7: A large number of people faced great inconvenience due to failure of the Pakistan Railways (PR) authorities in running the much-awaited quick train scheduled to ply between Karachi and Havelian from October.

The people came to know about this failure of the authorities when they visited different reservation offices of the Pakistan Railways in the twin cities of Rawalpindi and Islamabad to get their seats booked in Hazara Express for different destinations.

Interestingly, the Pakistan Railways has also published the train schedule in its new winter timetable released on October 15. The shows that 11-UP Hazara Express leaves Karachi city station at 6:30am daily and reaches Havelian at 10:55am next day.

Similarly, according to the , 12-Down Hazara Express leaves Havelian at 3:30pm and reaches Karachi city at 8:15pm the next day.

According to the PR , the train reaches at Rawalpindi station from Karachi at 7:45am while the train from Havelian arrives in Rawalpindi at 6:20pm.

An official of the PR at the main Rawalpindi Reservation Office told Dawn that actually Hazara Express was the new name of Chenab Express which had been given to the private sector. He said the private company had failed to run the train. However, he was not aware of the reason for the failure.

When contacted, Minister of State for Railways Ishaq Khan Khakwani said Hazara Express was given to Pakistan Railways Advisory and Consultancy Services (PRACS) on a single tender. He said PRACS was a private company, but it was owned by the PR. He said the train service could not be started due to some “legal hitch” and hopefully it would start from December 1.

Mr Khakwani said PRACS showed interest in running the train with all modern facilities and told the PR authorities that it would pay some 10 to 20 per cent more to them on what it had been earning on Chenab Express.

He said the PRACS planned to run the train on modern lines with stewards and stewardess serving meals. He said only a managerial transfer had been made and PRACS faced no competition as the proposed plan was not advertized.

About the presence of Hazara Express’ schedule in , he said it had been published much earlier and the legal problem was faced by the PR at the eleventh hour. He claimed that a corrigendum in this regard had been issued to the press.