Pakistan Railways to ensure train safety : Kh Saad Rafiq

Lahore : The Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafiq has said that “Pakistan Railways is bound to look for short term measures to ensure train safety, the policy of strict punishment along with reward should be implemented at full scale. There is no relaxation on negligence, incompetence and escape from duty. Train safety is an issue that needs to be on our top priority now, the long term measures for train safety have already been discussed and developed but the implementation may take few more months, we can’t wait more and should move towards immediate solutions.”

The Minister for Railways was talking to officials here at railways headquarters in a marathon meeting on train operations and safety procedures.

He was briefed on accidents, both fatal and non-fatal that occurred during last three years, officials told the minister that they cannot suspend every negligent employee due to grave shortage of operational staff in PR, the reason behind which is constrained employments offered in last few years and the shortage has now surged up to fifty percent.

He said that PR will not compromise it’s operations and train safety due to shortage of employees .

Minister for Railways approved the suggestion to develop mobile phone link between train staff and gateman, he asked the officials to immediately provide the phones to concerned operational staff.

He also asked officials to approach Ministry of defense production, seek suggestions on SOS signaling system; and come up with a practical solution that can improve present signaling system of Pakistan Railways. Pakistan Railways is already developing a strong signaling system based on new technology in collaboration with NESCOM, which works under Ministry of defense production.