Residential colonies in Sindh: despite collection from employees PR spends nothing on repairs, maintenance of premises

Despite deducting 5 percent from the salary of each employee since 2000, Pakistan Railways has failed to spend a single penny on the maintenance work of its residential colonies located across the province. Around 15 thousand PR employees from BPS 1 to BPS 16 in Karachi division are paying 5 percent of their basic salaries on account of house maintenance charges every month since 2000.
The said amount should have been spent on the repair and maintenance of the quarters, but unfortunately not a signal penny has been utilised in this regard, sources said. The condition of around four thousand residential quarters, located at different areas within the jurisdictions of Karachi Division including Railway Colony Cannt, Kemari Railway Colony, Drug Road Railway Colony, Landhi Railway Colony, Kotri Railway Colony, Hyderabad Railway Colony, Mirpurkhas and Dadu Railway Colony etc was quite miserable.
Sources said that civil engineering officers with the support of top officials were hell bent to fill their own pockets through fake and bogus billings, resulting billions of rupees loss to the ailing public entity. A PR employee, Zaman Malik, said that he had been leaving in Cantt Railway Colony for the last eight years and Rs 1000 was being deducted form his basic salary every month on account of maintenance charges.
"I went to Inspector of Works (IoW) to lodge my complaint regarding maintenance of the quarter some days ago. However, he refused to send his team, saying that they don't have such appliances for maintenance of the quarters," he added. Another employee said that some 40 years back, the authorities used to give maintenance contract to third party, and the contractor would go every residential quarter on single complaint, and used to repair the houses on time, adding that after the repair of quarter, he used to get 'certificate of satisfaction' from the house owner (the employ who lives in the quarter), but now despite several requests, none of the officials concerned visit the residence, hence the employ has to bear all expenses of repair and maintenance work of his quarter.
According to PR's law, it can give its quarters on commercial rent with a view to generate more income. However, employees said that would only be possible if a proper maintenance mechanism was introduced to repair the old and damaged quarters. Some 60 to 70 residential quarters in Karachi have already been given on commercial rent. There are dozens of other quarters that can also be rented out. They said many PR's quarters are vacant and are decaying due to lack of maintenance. They demanded of the government to allocate funds for the repair and maintenance of the quarters in residential colonies.