LAHORE, Nov 12: The auditor-general has diagnosed that living beyond its means is the cause of the bad financial health of the Pakistan Railway for the last three decades or so.

Less revenue generation and flow of expenses on the higher side took the overdraft of the Pakistan Railway to the tune of Rs25.315 billion by May 20 and it is on the rise with every passing day, says the auditor-general in the report recently submitted to the president’s secretariat as “a systematic analysis of the Pakistan Railway revenue collection system and possibilities of pilferages”.

Prior to 1980s, the railway was running in profit, as sufficient units of rolling stock (locomotives, coaches and freight wagons) were available. In those days, some 136,000 thousand passengers were carried and 931,069 freight wagons were loaded on an average annually, says the report.

From 1990 to 2007, the rolling stock gradually decreased locomotives from 1,026 to 544, passenger coaches from 2,137 to 1,670 and freight wagons from 37,395 to 19,638. The passenger carriage decreased from 145,710 thousand to 83,899 thousand and loading of freight wagons from 1,155,472 to 320,335 despite 50 per cent increase in the country’s population.

Listing main causes of losses or pilferages, the report states that over the years unnecessary consumption of fuel cost Rs776.865 million, irregular payment of Rs34 million was made annually to city booking agencies of Pakistan Railway Advisory and Consultancy Services Ltd (PRACS), a revenue of Rs153.033 million was misappropriated, the railway lost 37.75 per cent freight or goods traffic, storage charges to the tune of Rs294.860 million were irregularly waived, fixed targets of gross earnings could not be achieved, admitted debits of Rs97.268 million could not be recovered, Rs1,493.762 million against government departments and others and another Rs1,045 million against Sui gas consumers are outstanding and purchases made through stores were surplus.

The report says that between 1975 and 1980 the earning through goods transportation was 64.40 per cent of the total earning and it reduced to 26.65 per cent during 2006-07, meaning a loss of 37.75 per cent in goods earning or traffic.