LAHORE: Pakistan Railways has failed to determine the accurate strength of its employees as its smart card project, despite the signing of a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with National Database & Registration Authority (NADRA), lies in limbo and the employees’ data has also not been collected so far, Pakistan Today has learnt.
According to sources, a MoU was signed between PR and NADRA in August 2017, according to which the former had to provide NADRA with the details of its employees for the issuance of smart cards. They said former minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique had claimed that the ages-old system of PR’s human resources would be revamped through these cards but like several other projects of the department, this one has also been facing delays and the new government has also shown no interest in it so far.
Sources added that the purpose of the smart cards was to enable PR to access the data of their employees in one click whereas the card would have all the important information of each PR employee including his or her date of appointment, retirement, personal information, designation, pay scale and family chart.
“If the cards are issued, PR will have the accurate strength of its employees and it will also help in removing flaws or ghost employees that are usually hired under the heads of contingent or daily wager staff,” they said, adding that PR could not work on the provision of the card as the flaws would be revealed and the matter of ghost employees would also become a point of concern.
“NADRA had quoted high rates per card as there are more than 70,000 employees and it was getting costly. Another reason for the delay is that PR employees are all over Pakistan and their data is dispersed. We are still in a process of gathering the data, and this is a time-taking task,” said PR spokesperson Quratulain while speaking to this scribe.
She said that the card had to have complete data of each PR employee which included medical details, place of posting, joining, grade, scale, designation and family details.