ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways is confident to generate Rs 37.8 billion revenue during the current financial year under a multi-pronged strategy including business development, rolling stock availability, infrastructure development and governance.
The government had given the target of Rs 32 billion to be achieved during the current fiscal and the Railways would not only achieve the target but also surpass it, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
“The freight train service was main source of income of Pakistan Railways which was improving gradually, adding presently plus-minus nine goods trains were being operated on daily basis.”
He said out of 452 locomotives 281 were operational. He said that the present government has recently added 63 locomotives in the existing fleet owned by PR. Giving year-wise break up, he said that in 2012-13 Pakistan Railways had total 160 locomotives while 92 passenger trains were operating. With the size of the rolling stock, PR and earned capital of 1.07 percent increase from freight trains.
In 2013-14 the size number of locomotives was increased to 188, while the number of trains moved up to 104 and earned increased revenue of 2.44 percent in the freight train sector.
In 2014-15, he said the number of locomotives was increased to 281 and improving the number of passengers trains to 106 while the revenue from freight trains jumped to 7.03 percent. “The figure shows that the organization is going in the right direction to set aside the loans,” he added.
He expressed the hope that Pakistan Railways would meet the revenue generation target as it was eyeing to collect Rs 20 billion from passenger trains and more than Rs 10 billion from freight services in 2015-16.
Answering a question, he said that Pakistan Railways has laid down about 400 kilometre track in the country after the 1947 to till date. He said the organization was neglected by the previous governments and it was the basic reason that Pakistan Railways could not flourish properly.
Pakistan Railways, he said could not generate more revenue from the land owned by PR without cooperation of provincial governments. He said the provincial government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa has transferred property rights of the land to Pakistan Railways and negotiations with other provinces were underway.
After the restless and appreciable efforts of the present government, the Pakistan Railways has succeeded to a great extent in winning the passengers’ confidence as a result travellers are now preferring train over public transport, he added.
