ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways was putting all-out efforts to vacate the Zhob Railway Station building as soon as possible which was occupied by unauthorized outsiders and was being used for residential purposes following its permanent closure.

The notices as per the new Ordinance of 2021 for removal of encroachment introduced by the federal government were being served to unauthorized occupants, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.

He said the efforts were being expedited with the assistance of local administration and the levies to retrieve the encroached structures and hopefully the encroachment issue would be resolved.

The Zhob Railway Station was established in 1920 on the Bostan-Zhob section which was a narrow gauge section and it was closed for passenger traffic in 1985 and for goods traffic in 1990 being un-economical hence no, renovation of the station was carried out, since its closure, he added. He said the anti-encroachment operation for the vacation of these unauthorized service buildings would be carried out with the help of the district administration of Zhob due to the precarious law and order situation in this tribal area.

To a question, the official said Pakistan Railways has taken several steps to improve the financial conditions of the department including Raabta.

He said annually 60 million passengers used Railways for travel. 40 percent of tickets were being sold on the outdated processes without any audit and the Raabta was an initiative of the department towards enhanced customer facilitation by using an artificial intelligence approach.

Currently, the official said the system was decentralized with includes a few short coming like limited ticket booking options and non-flexible fare, outdated ticketing & freight parcel booking system & non-availability of automated reports.

He said the manual system was inaccurate and inefficient. Raabta platform lets customers plan and single interface customers can check train status, choose a seat, purchase a seat, order car rental, meals & refreshments, and book hotels.

Besides this, he said Raabta allowed passengers to lodge status during the journey customers can book tickets through multiple platforms including mobile applications, websites, ticket agents, and reservation officers.