PAKISTAN Railways has been in the news lately for all the wrong reasons, the public-sector entity seemingly in a state of terminal decline and the government apparently helpless to prevent its slide towards bankruptcy. Over Eid, yet more bad news came from the railways. Workers protesting against the non-payment of salaries briefly went on strike, holding up rail traffic in Peshawar and Lahore at one of the busiest times of the year. Then media reports suggested railways authorities have requested the federal government increase PR's overdraft facility by Rs5bn to help cover its expenses. Last year alone the railways racked up a deficit of Rs36bn. The staggering losses piling up in PR have many, many reasons. There are the structural issues, such as the National Logistics Cell drawing away freight from rail carriage to road carriage, and then there are the management, infrastructure and financial issues. What they all have in common, how- ever, is a lack of a plan by the government to tackle them. This has given rise to all manner of rumours, with some suggesting the ultimate goal may be to privatise the railways at a throwaway price or to hold a fire sale of the vast tracts of valuable land the railways owns across the country.

Without a comprehensive plan to save the railways, it is almost certainly headed for collapse sooner than later. For political reasons, the government will most likely be unwilling to touch the overstaffing issues — letting go of state emplo-yees, however unneces- sary or redundant they may be, at a time of rampant inflation and low growth cannot be very appealing. However, that does not mean nothing can be done. Take for example the issue of dozens of engines lying in various railway yards across the country in need of repair. The lack of engines had led to nume-rous curtailments of passenger trains, driving down revenue even further for the already cash-starved entity. Government and railways officials need to sit together to figure out the best way of reviving services and to do so in a way that ensures the financial viability of the railways. Simply throwing money at the engine yards, for example, without addressing the technical and capacity constraints will most likely result in engine breakdowns soon enough again.

Pakistan Railways is awash in red ink not because the government is not giving it enough cash. It is awash in red ink because of bad management and poor policies. Railways and government officials need to work together to fix those problems. Anything less, and in time there may be no railways to fix.