Pakistan Railways on path of brinkmanship

Pakistan Railways on path of brinkmanship

As the crisis at Pakistan Railways (PR) touches a new height, the most recent economic catastrophe in the organisation can be blamed upon a stalemate between the Ministry of Finance and the Railways Ministry. However, the problem has its roots in the decades-long politicisation of the management and hiring practises at the organisation once a proud, rich and highly money-spinning corporation.

Pakistan failed to protect the reservoir, which was established decades ahead of the creation of Pakistan. Like most publicly owned organisations, Pakistan Railways is repulsively overstaffed. It has a rather bad habit of not maintaining its engines, with the result that well over 500 of them are now malfunctioning and the rest operating at such low efficiencies that its fuel costs are skyrocketing beyond the already high pace of energy price augmentation.

Although belated, the railways ministry has realised the situation and has asked the finance ministry for funds to purchase newer engines as well as renovation of old ones. The questioners are quite rightly concerned about the integrity of railways’ promises to spend the money as they say they will.

For the past decade, Pakistan Railways has constantly been seeking bailouts every year that have run into billions of rupees. Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh has had a very public falling out with Railways Minister Ghulam Ahmed Bilour, insisting that the railways ministry present a reliable plan to reform the organisation and restore it to profitability before the government will release any funds to what has become a permanent basket case.

Both men have refused to budge from their respective position, which has caused inconvenience to railway employees, passengers and even pensioners.

The government cannot simply fork up money to state-owned corporations without holding them answerable. Bilour’s steadiness with his plan, which deemed too little by any who have actually read it, is nothing short of slaphappy.

Gratefully, President Asif Ali Zardari seems set to arbitrate and at least on the surface, is siding with the finance ministry. We hope his intervention results in an everlasting solution to this decades-long problem.

On the other hand, Prime Minister Syed Yousaf Raza Gilani indicated possibilities of denationalisation of the Pakistan Railways and Steal Mills.

Decentralisation can help in preventing a crumble. For an intense attempt at revival, railways could be divided into smaller more manageable sections with professionals inducted from outside, assigning to measure the feasibility and worth of each one of these parts. Few operations would have to be curtailed and fares augmented, but there is no running away from this reality if Pakistani trains are to be put on the right way.

Posted by Faisal Farooq on Oct 19 2011. Filed under Opinion. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0. You can leave a response or trackback to this entry