S. NAYYAR Iqbal Raza says Pakistan Railways Minister Bilour is on record citing the National Logistics Cell as the cause for the downfall of the Pakistan Railways’ freight service (Aug 26).
The NLC, the leading public sector freight transportation company, is turning out to be another white elephant as it has to bear an additional cost of Rs2.70 million daily on account of interest on loans worth Rs4.30 billion.
Isn’t it that the NLC, with private carriers, draws away almost 70 to 80 per cent freight from rail to road carriage?
The country's truck fleet is mostly made up of obsolete, underpowered, and polluting vehicles, including old Mercedes and second-hand Bedford trucks brought into Pakistan by Afghan refugees.
The National Highway couldn’t take the persistent beating of the heavily-loaded axels of civil transport. NLC trucks and trailers equally contributed to the pavement damage, such as surface rutting. Strict check must be kept on overloaded civil and NLC transport fleets.
The increased haulage of freight by road over-strained the highway network. Furthermore, diversion of long-haul freight traffic to the relatively uneconomical mode of transport (by road) involved extra costs and, therefore, a net loss to the national economy.
This decline in the remunerative freight traffic resulted in heavy financial loss to the PR. Another contributing factor is the uneconomical use of available traction power for goods traffic, for example, powerful railway engines (2500-3000 HP) being used for hauling light passenger trains even on branch lines.
The NLC, comprising a civil GT company, was initially raised in August 1978 to reduce the congestion at the Karachi port, which had resulted in a waiting time of 50 days or more for ships to discharge their cargo and was costing the government $12.50 million per annum in demurrage.
Nevertheless, with the passage of time, the civil transport was gradually phased out and new Mercedes-Benz trucks coupled with 20 tonne trailers, Saviem, Hino and Fiat trucks and a number of Mitsubishi tractors were inducted into the NLC.
These trucks were imported on the orders of Lt Gen Saeed Qadir. Later, the NLC introduced the concept of containerisation in the country and became the largest multi-modal freight handler in the region.
To strengthen the weak section of the National Highway, an ad hoc organisation, NLC Engineers, was hurriedly created.
Later, it also became a permanent feature and a parallel organisation to the Frontier Works Organisation.
After successful completion of its mission, the NLC should have been disbanded. However, due to faulty decisions taken in the past the company is running in losses. The Chief of Army Staff has already directed the NLC to close down all business ventures that fall beyond the company’s mandate.
In the present form, the NLC may be closed down or reorganised and given an important role of developing agricultural farms, tapping water resources and producing green power for the country.
SYED AHMED Mississauga, Ontario
