[The News (Pak)] Minister of State for Pakistan Railways Jadam Manghrio has said massive corruption has caused a Rs 16 billion loss to the department. Talking to The News at the Khairpur Railway Station, the minister made the startling disclosure that the department had 60,000 (75 per cent) ghost employees. He said corruption of Rs 7 billion was carried out each year on account of fuel of trains alone, adding that the Pakistan Railways provided Rs 14-15 billion for POL for trains. He said out of it, only Rs 7 billion was utilised while the remaining amount was misappropriated.
Jadam said land grabbers had occupied the prime land of the railways, adding that the department and the police were also involved in it. The minister said he was trying his level best to bring reforms in the department but expressed his inability to end corruption.
Jadam said the president of Pakistan had a discussion with him regarding the department. "I informed him that there was huge corruption in the Pakistan Railways." The minister said he was satisfied with the client service of the booking offices but the recruitment policy was not fair. Jadam said appointment orders of 500 employees in Peshawar were recently cancelled due to incomplete formalities.
The minister said railways is a technical department but employees lack technical expertise. Jadam said 80,000 people were on the PR payroll, but 30,000 were absent from their duties while another 30,000 were out of the country.
The minister said railways officials were fully aware of his schedule but the train arrived 1:30 hours late. He said the trains mostly arrived late, annoying the people.
When this scribe told him that due to lack of goods service, exporters of dates were not able to export lakhs of tonnes of dates, the minister said he would provide cargo facility to exporters.
The minister said accountability should be held in the department, and added that he was involving the Federal Investigation Agency to bring down corruption. He said loop lines of the PR had been completely closed.