Pakistan Railways (PR) General Manager Saeed Akhtar claimed on Thursday that backlog of pay and pensions of the railway employees will be cleared before Eid uz Azha.
Addressing a press conference at the Railways Headquarters, GM Railways said payments to railway pensioners will start from Monday, while payment of salaries to staff had started and will be completed before Sunday. He said the finance division has paid Rs 1 billion to the railways after which the organization started paying salaries and had paid over Rs 220 million to WAPDA.
GM Railways said that he met President Asif Ali Zardari in Islamabad and gave a detailed briefing to him on the railways crisis. He said the President made it clear that pays and pensions should be paid in any case. The President advised railways to increase the volume of traffic. The GM railways apprised the President of negotiations underway with the World Bank about the restoration of the institution and parleys with private parties to run trains.
He said that PR will get another tranche of Rs 2 billion on October 25 which will help clear the backlog of pays and pension and payment to gas authorities before Eid. He said he had proposed to the finance division that railways should get Rs 4 billion per month as subsidy to run its affairs smoothly. However, it should immediately be paid Rs 20-30 billion as advance in six months for the repair of locomotives as income of the railways could only be increased by bringing more locomotives on the network.
Replying to questions, he said the railways administration had allocated Rs 3 billion in the budget this year for locomotive repairs against the Rs 1.5 billion kept under the head in previous years. However, he said the money was allocated to run locomotives while another Rs 800 million had been allocated to repair another 41 locomotives. He hoped that railways will add two locomotives per month after two months. He said that negotiations were underway with banks for a loan worth Rs 16 billion to repair another 100 locomotives.
Regarding the freight sector, he said negotiations had been finalised with private parties who will give Rs 5 billion to PR to repair 100 locomotives to be used exclusively for freight business. He said the loan will be adjusted in the freight charges.
He hoped that a roadmap to restore PR will come forth by November 15 from discussions with the World Bank. Meanwhile, railway labour unions once again protested at noon on Thursday against the non-payment of salaries.
According to details, the Lahore division and workshop labourers protested after the federal minister for railways failed to fulfill the promise to release employee salaries. Railway workers staged a sit-in in front of trains standing at the washing line. Railway employees said the protest will continue until their salaries were released. Meanwhile, railway officials said salaries will be released at all cost at evening.
