LAHORE: Railways is a hanging fruit which is getting rotten due to the indifference of the ruling elite. Railways can reduce the crude oil import bill by at least 25 percent if a major chunk of goods transport is diverted to Railways.
The priority of planners, who control its operations, is public appeasement. They operate innumerable passenger trains that mostly operate at loss.
In fact, public appeasement has destroyed our economy. Domestic consumers are given priority in supply of gas and power for instance, while the industry suffers. Industrial sector is given first priority when it comes to the provision of gas and power supply in Bangladesh and in China, both growing economies.
In China and India, major transportation of goods is carried out through Railways. It is the cheapest mode of goods transportation around the world.
One engine can pull up to 100 bogies (wagons) that can pull out 300-400 trucks from the road.
We have an adequate rail line infrastructure as well wagons and engines to operate at least 10 goods trains from Karachi to up country on a daily basis.
But to do so, the planners would have to take the difficult decision of reducing the number of passenger trains to two or three a day.
The planners must understand that Pakistan’s road infrastructure is well developed and capable of carrying passengers to all corners of the country.
In fact, most people travel by wagons, or luxury coaches to most of the destinations in the country.
The luxury coaches that operate on Karachi-Lahore route carry more passengers, are more punctual and comfortable than any passenger train of the country.
Passenger trains that operate in the country invariably accommodate 40 percent of the passengers either free of cost or on huge discount. The passenger trains cannot operate on profit because of this fact.
It is understandable that the goods train in the initial period would not be able to operate with full load, because traders and industry would not have trust on timely deliveries. However, once Railways builds that trust with timely deliveries, it would change.
Trains would take less time than trucks if they operate on the routine that is applied on passenger trains.
Freight charges would be reduced by at least 50 percent too. This would benefit trade and industry as well as exports.
Given the inefficiency usually linked with the public sector it would be more prudent to lease out all ten goods trains to the private sector at reasonable price. Railways must not try to milk money from the private sector on this count.
Instead, it must charge enough money keeping in mind the expenses needed to maintain the infrastructure. It must however force them under agreement to reduce the freight charges to a reasonable limit to reduce transportation cost.
However it must be ensured that the freight charges are fixed fairly to keep them interested in operating the trains. With regular trains, the daily load on highways would be reduced by 8,000 trucks (4,000 on downward journey and 4,000 going upcountry). Pakistan badly needs a reliable goods train system to reduce both time and cost of the entrepreneurs.