Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique has said that Pakistan Railways is coming out of its 125 years old shell and is on the road to modernization and digitization. The minister was talking to media at Railways Headquarters here on Saturday after signing a memorandum of understanding (MOU) with National Database and Registration Authority (NADRA) for issuance of digital employee card.
According to terms agreed by both the parties, in first phase the information pertaining to employees including date of appointment, retirement, personal information, designation, pay scale and family chart would be verified and registered by NADRA before issuance of digitized employee card.
In next phase, the same card would be issued to the family members of the employees. The digital employee card would hold all the necessary information of an employee which will be verified duly by NADRA and Pakistan Railways. "This breakthrough step would bring a visible change in human resource management of this huge department with approximately 76,000 employees and 96,000 sanctioned strength.
The record of all Railways personal would be available on a single click," said the minister. Pakistan Railways currently have thousands of employees on its pay roll to redress structural flaws and past maladministration. It has already started work on restructuring which is in its last phase and would be completed in February next year.
Pakistan Railways would avail services of NADRA for various automation and digitization projects in future. Earlier, Pakistan Railways Information technology department had introduced e-ticketing system. Its mobile app users are over 1.5 lacs in number. It has sold over 520 millions mobile tickets till date and every month its users are increasing.
Complete digitization, developing common digital platform and integrated information of employees would bring transparency in the system, terminate ghost categories and manage employees, thereby reducing the management cost, save time and bring efficiency in service delivery. The MoU was signed by Colonel Nouman, DG NADRA Punjab, and Director IT Pakistan Railways Fahad Rehman.