Pakistan Railways revenues have increased to Rs 36581.864 million in year 2015-16 as against Rs 18069.546 million in 2012-13, registering a net gain of Rs 18512.318 million in three years.

The deficit of Pakistan Railways stood at Rs 30.504 billion on June 30, 2013, it has been brought down to Rs 26.993 billion on June 30, 2016, ie a reduction of Rs. 3.511 billion over a period of three years.

This is despite a rise in expenditure from Rs 48.535 billion in 2012-13 to Rs 63.154 billion during 2015-16.

Official sources while highlighting steps taken by the present government to reduce deficit of Pakistan Railways on Saturday said passenger sector earned Rs 20871. 630 million during year 2015-16 as compared to Rs 12982.218 million in 2012-13, thus registering a growth Rs 7889.412 million in three year.

The freight sector earned Rs 10585.903 million during year 2015-16 as compared to Rs 1673.661 million in year 2012-13, registering a growth of Rs 8912.242 (532.5 per cent) in three years.

The sources said Pakistan Railway managed to load 2,43,794 waggons of different commodities during the year 2015-2016, registering an increase of 26.24 percent as compared to waggons in year 2012-13.

The sources said preference to high rated commodities like POL, in-land coal transportation agreement with M/S Ruy; Shendong from transportation of 4.2 million tonnes imported coal from port to coal Fired Power Plants at Sahiwal and improvement of terminal facilities to curtail loading and un-loading time were some of the other steps that were taken.

In passenger sector, the sources said the department adopted measures which included outsourcing of commercial management of four trains to generate a revenue of Rs 3.35 billion per annum, outsourcing of commercial management of luggage vans and brake vans under Public-Private Partnership (PPP), reduction of fares attracting more than 5.1 million passengers to travel by train and introduction of Green line train between Rawalpindi-Karachi via Lahore with extra facilities and amenities.

The sources said that addition of different trains in phases to facilitate passengers, introduction of e-ticketing, infrastructure improvements, replacement of economy class coaches with air conditioned and improvement of cleanliness.