The National Assembly Standing Committee on Pakistan Railways (PR) was informed by railway officials that a revenue shortfall of 6 billion rupees in the current fiscal year is expected. The projected income is forecast at 12 billion rupees - or 6 billion rupees less than what the monolith earned in 2010-11.
In this context, it is relevant to note that during a recent press conference by the Railways Minister Bilour, a number of retired PR employees were staging a protest demonstration over non-payment of their pensions. The fortunes of PR, like other public sector entities, are being held hostage to two major factors: corruption and inability or unwillingness to take decisions that are in the economic interest of PR.
If one sprinkles the severe paucity of resources at the government level, given the failure to meet revenue targets while runaway current expenditure continues to be a source of drain on the country's meager resources, then each and every paisa diverted to keep this entity functional implies, to the minds of economists, good money being spent after bad. Or in other words, if past precedence is anything to go by, any extra injections would not improve PR's performance but merely prolong its death throes.
Examples of corruption in PR abound. Adviser, Transparency International Pakistan, Adil Gilani revealed two serious generic allegations against PR that the entity has not yet responded to: (i) specifications in tenders are set up to suit one manufacturer and (ii) discriminatory and difficult tender conditions violative of the public procurement rules and regulations are being applied.
Recently, theft estimated at millions of rupees from railway godowns as well as from railway depots where maintenance work is carried out hit the news. In short, the scale and extent of pilferage as well as alleged kickbacks in procurement of expensive equipment, including engines, surprises few anymore. Additionally, in recent weeks, PR has been much in the news due to over ten-hour train delays and, in some cases, trains are delayed for days. The ostensible reason for these delays is PR's lack of cash that disables it from procuring oil, a fundamental input to keep the railways operational.
There is no doubt that the PR is also part of the inter-circular debt problem that is causing the country's energy sector to operate well below capacity. One continuously hears laments by the federal railway minister about the Ministry of Finance's refusal to release the approved funds to PR. However, one does not hear any action plan other than to stop some unprofitable routes. PR has begun to mirror the energy sector, whereby higher tariffs are not mitigating poor service delivery.
Bilour has yet to get his Ministry to formulate an action plan designed specifically to deal with PR problems in the short, medium and long-term. On Monday, Railways Minister blamed a lack of funds for, what he claimed, was the downward spiral of Pakistan Railways. Bilour added that the government had approved 1.15 billion rupees for PR, money urgently needed to procure 400 engines, but the money was not released - a condition reminiscent of the pledges made by Friends of Democratic Pakistan (FoDP) that were simply not disbursed.
The reason for FoDP's failure to disburse pledged assistance is two-fold: the global financial crisis that has hit the developed world and our failure to formulate a transparent accountability mechanism for spending disbursed assistance. In the case of PR one would urge Bilour to sit with his team and begin to take a serious note of corruption and irregularities in the Ministry as well as resist over staffing, a temptation of politicians in this country, as that is crippling the already mortally wounded PR.
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