Monday, July 19, 2010

The Nation - July 19

Railways off-track


Pakistan Railways has spread consternation among travellers by cancelling six passenger trains, three of them from Saturday, two more on Monday, and the sixth on July 29. The plea taken has been that the trains cost the cash-strapped Railways Rs 1.5 billion a year. The Railways authorities seem to have found a new way of saving money: not providing the service. The railway unions have reacted unfavourably to the decision, arguing that such losses were being caused by the Railways administration’s addiction to luxuries. A union spokesman has pointed out that the cancelled trains ran full, and thus could not have been running at a loss. If that is how the Railways intends to deal with losses, it might as well go out of business. However, in that case, it would not be able to provide the luxuries it presently does to those in its service. It should always remember that the purpose of the Railways is not to further the interests or lifestyles of its servants, but facilitate the ordinary citizen.
                                               
However, now that the Railways has been handed over to the ANP by the PPP when it formed the central government, it is perhaps too much to hope that the Railways would be properly administered. The Minister in-charge, Ghulam Ahmad Bilour, has not improved the running of the Railways, and it seems he has acquiesced in this hamfisted method of improving Railways finances. He appears to have taken the Ministry solely to promote his party’s ancient pro-Indian agenda by allowing India an overland rail route to Afghanistan, not because he has any intentions of so running the Railways that its messed-up finances are revamped, all the while improving the service provided to the ordinary traveller.
 
The Railways provides a cheap solution to the problem of moving both goods and people and is subsidised the world over because of this. The solution to its problems is not closing down routes, or even raising fares, but reforming the way they are run. This the government must do, even if it means ignoring the ANP agenda.

No comments:

Post a Comment