Pakistan Railways deficit decreased by Rs.0.059 billion

ISLAMABAD: The deficit of Pakistan Railways has decreased by Rs 0.059 billion (0.24%) despite the increase of expenditure on account of pay, pension and fuel from July 2018 to March 2019 as compared to the corresponding period of the last financial year.

Pakistan Railways has spent Rs 1.207 billion on account of pay, Rs 0.0468 billion for pension and Rs 2.729 billion for fuel, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.

He said the account of Pakistan Railways was closed on June 30 of each year and the actual surplus and deficit were worked out at the end of the financial year.

Pakistan Railways was assigned revenue target of Rs 50.500 billion for the current financial year as against the actual revenue generation of Rs 49.576 billion during the financial year 2017-18, he added.

He said the department has earned Rs 39.010 billion up to March 2019 from the operational activities, which was Rs3.706 billion more than the revenue earned during the same period of the last financial year.

With the support of federal government, he said that Pakistan Railways was making concerted efforts for increasing its revenue which was going to bring down the deficit further.

He said Pakistan Railways had already started 11 new passenger trains and increased the number of freight trains from 8 to 14 during the last 10 months.

The official said that due to introduction of the passengers and freight trains, the revenue of Pakistan Railways has been increasing at reasonable pace.

He said that based on this positive trend, it was expected that Pakistan Railways would be able to make further gains during the next financial year of 2019-20.

Pakistan Railways was going to launch a new passenger train `Sir Syed Express` in June which would also contribute towards additional revenue generation for the department, he added