ISLAMABAD   -  Pakistan Railways has achieved an unprecedented earning of Rs 66 billion in the first nine months of the current financial year 2023-24, despite facing a financial crisis due to floods in the monsoon season.

“The department is expecting to generate revenues up to Rs 80 billion by the end of this financial year through the consistent efforts and hard work of the Railway workers,” official sources in the Ministry told APP. They said that during the first nine months of the last financial year (2022-23), the department earned around Rs 39 billion, a historic increase in revenue during the same period of the current financial year (2023-24).

According to the data, they said that out of the revenue of Rs 66 billion, revenue was derived from passenger and freight trains while other sectors of the department also contributed to the total revenue. At present, they said that Pakistan Railways is operating around 96 passenger trains, up from the previous year when 86 trains were running. Similarly, during the previous year, on average it operated 3.75 freight trains while the number reached seven freight trains this year.

The sources said the department emphasized that the issue of delay in payment of salaries to employees has now been resolved and things will be more streamlined, once work on the Mainline-I (ML-I) project kicks off. To a question, they said that Pakistan Railways has beefed up precautionary measures to reduce passenger train accidents and only six minor accidents with no causality took place on the entire railway network in the country during the last three months.

The drastic decrease in accidents has been witnessed due to the efforts being undertaken to reduce trespassing at unmanned level crossings and unauthorized locations, they added. “Our staff is continuously monitoring the railway tracks across the country and conducting thorough inspection of the trains as the safety of the passengers is the top priority of the department,” the sources said.