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LAHORE: The institution of Pakistan Railways is frail enough to be on crutches as it has turned 150. It is bogged down by the excess baggage of obsolete infrastructure, dilapidated assets, resource scarcity, financial and management irregularities.
Although one of the largest public-sector organisations of the country, it has been running in losses for the last three decades or so despite having an unbelievable share of landholdings and human resources besides being a source of cheap transportation for millions of people on a daily basis.
Less revenue generation and flow of expenses on high side have taken its overdraft to the tune of Rs40 billion up to March-end and it is on the rise with every passing day.
It is hard pressed to repair, maintain and overhaul its existing assets including locomotive, rolling stock, track, bridges, buildings, signalling system etc.
In January this year, the Pakistan Railways found it hard twice in a week to operate all trains for want of fuel. Operation of some 30 passenger trains was suspended on the grounds of loss-making. Frequent failures of available locomotives have made it difficult to maintain credible operations and punctuality of all passenger and freight trains resulting in daily protests by the commuters.
Prior to 1980’s, the railways 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, according to the PR Year Book 2009-10.
In the 1990’s, the rolling stock gradually reduced i.e., locomotives from 1,026 to 544; passenger coaches from 2,137 to 1,670 and freight wagons from 37,395 to 19,638 up to 2006-07. The passenger carriage decreased from 145,710 thousand to 83,899 thousand and loading of freight wagons from 1,155,472 to 320,335 in spite of the fact that the growth of population in the country increased up to 50 per cent.
According to the Year Book, the PR has 7,791 route kilometres and 9,027 running track kilometres the condition of which has not been generally satisfactory due to accumulation of deferred maintenance owing to resource constraint.
During the year 2009-10, a sum of Rs2,500 million was allocated for procurement of track material against the actual requirement of Rs8,935 million. The existing track needs 729 kilometres of rail renewal, 1,521 km of sleeper renewal, 622 km of ballast screening and 980 km of welding rail joints.
Some 80 per cent of the 14,570 or so bridges have outlived their utility. A total of 159 bridges have been identified being in acute distress requiring immediate attention or rehabilitation while 109 were included in the project located on the main line and 50 others on important branch lines with anticipated cost of Rs412 million.
Out of a fleet of 500 diesel electric locomotives, more than 200 have been out of service and stabled for want of imported spares or repairs.
Out of 400 passenger coaches, the PR still required funds for rehabilitation of 159.
Some 50 per cent of the 11,737 four wheeled wagons needed replacement or conversion for higher capacity or speed.
More than half of the 80,000 or so residential buildings, stations, schools, hospitals, offices, stores, workshops and rest houses have been in deplorable or unsafe condition. More than 500 stations have obsolete non-interlocking mechanical signalling system of the 18th century.
The infrastructure wrecked during riots in Sindh following Benazir Bhutto’s assassination on Dec 27, 2007, could not be fully restored yet.
Rioters had torched 35 locomotives, 139 coaches and 65 stations, damaged 36 bridges and 27 manned level crossings, uprooted signal and communication system besides tracks, six track machines and cranes in the Karachi and Sukkur divisions of the railways, suspending all kinds of rail traffic to and from the Sindh capital to other parts of the country.
Out of 87 burnt coaches, it could repair only three to date owing to paucity of funds.
In the 1980’s, freight trains were running in profit and transported goods in bulk i.e., wheat, coal, urea and imported consignments at port were cleared through rail. The introduction of the NLC (National Logistic Cell) affected the rail business and its downfall started, particularly in respect of imported goods.
In the recent past, freight business at Quetta dryport was also diverted to NLC dryport and the railways was deprived of its considerable earning.
The railways shifted its attention from freight to passenger trains operation that resulted in decline of rail business. It is a fact that as the ratio of profit in the passenger was less than freight and the former hardly match even the operating expenditure.
At present, only one train Karakoram Express (41-up/42–down) is running in profit while all other trains are in loss.
Unnecessary detention of freight wagons at stations and en-route, particularly in big yards, is due to negligence of operating and mechanical department.
Five years ago, some 30 locomotives and 1,200 high speed wagons were inducted in the existing fleet of the railways but unfortunately the target of earning could not be achieved.
Goods in Transit for Afghanistan (GITA) traffic was also a factor of earning that has decreased up to 50 per cent and the same was diverted to road. The Federal Board of Revenue may be approached in this connection to restrict transport of GITA by road in future.
The demand of wagons was never met at Karachi port area stations. Owing to mismanagement, most wagons were detained unnecessarily at main yards and en-route stations over the system.
In March last year, the Federal Investigation Agency unearthed a scam involving senior officials in the sale of railways scrap. The tenders were the biggest in Pakistan Railways’ history as one was for the sale of 21,000 tonnes of scrap while the other was for the sale of 18,000 tonnes of scrap.
Engineer Muhammad Iqbal Khatri, a retired additional general manager of railways and a member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport Pakistan, said his former organisation’s planning had not been in line with the international policy on account of ever-increasing cost of operation and maintenance.
“Both moveable and immovable assets are kept to bare minimum requirements, addition in assets is preferred over replacement of dilapidated ones and condemned or inactive assets are disposed of while operation and maintenance of assets are outsourced to save expenditure on overhead charges.
“Whatever may be the reasons, it is a fact that PR has not been able to maintain its assets as it required billions of rupees for their repair or replacement. It will be advisable for PR to give priority to the existing assets and to make them effective and efficient to meet the operational requirement.
“If PR is not able to maintain existing assets, then its administration as well as the Government of Pakistan should not think of any addition in the assets which are also going to face the same fate of lack of maintenance and ultimate burden on the national exchequer.
“In the past, the expansion of railways infrastructure in the shapes of Mechanized Marshalling Yard Pipri, Locomotive Factory at Risalpur, Carriage Factory at Islamabad, five sleeper factories at various locations, telecommunication system, Railway Academy, Railway Police, doubling of track from Lodhran to Khanewal, conversion of track from meter-gauge to broad-gauge from Mirpurkhas to Khokhrapar etc., did not bring any fruit like increase in revenue earnings, efficiency and/or self-reliance rather these infrastructure have become a burden on national exchequer.
“Without any appreciable productivity, these facilities are being guarded with heavy expenditure on utility bills, maintenance and non-productive employees.
“More upcoming projects like increase in the locomotive fleet from 520 to 657 (according to PC-1 for Procurement of 150 Locomotives), Doubling of Track between Khanewal and Raiwind, between Shahdara and Faisalabad, rail link between Gwadar and Quetta, Peshawar and Jalalabad (Afghanistan), establishment of Container Terminal/Dry Port near Sher Shah etc., also need reconsideration in view of lack of back-up maintenance facilities, very little business and revenue generation.
“All such upcoming projects if not examined in the light of international policy of assets management will have the same fate as has been of the existing infrastructure,” maintained Mr Khatri.
The Pakistan Railways should ask the government to allocate funds for the maintenance and repair of the existing assets rather than for any expansion of infrastructure or addition to the assets. The government should restrict allocation of development funds for expansion of infrastructure of railways and divert these resources for rehabilitation of existing assets which need billions of rupees for improving the present state of affairs and trains operation.
