LAHORE: During a press conference on Friday, the outgoing Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique claimed that their policies for Pakistan Railways had uplifted the conditions of railways and if the policies are carried forward with the same spirit, the railway conditions would improve further. Giving details of the progress, Khawaja Saad Rafique said that after taking over the charge of Pakistan Railways, his prime focus was to reduce the expenses and increase the generation of income for Pakistan Railways. “Under this policy Pakistan Railways earned Rs 40.01 billion against the set targets of Rs 36 billion during the fiscal year 2016-2017,” he said. Saad Rafique mentioned about the poor state of the railways tracks and informed the press that almost 730 kilometre long tracks were rehabilitated while railways laid 138km new track in Balochistan. “In 2013, revenue from passenger sector was almost 78 percent while freight was hardly contributing 13 percent whereas by the end of June 2017 the earning from passenger sector was 55 percent while the freight was contributing 31 percent to the total revenue,” he added. He informed the press that until June 2013, only one freight train was moving per day on average from Karachi port whereas the number of freight trains had increased to 12 per day on average during his tenure. He added that Pakistan Railways was also supplying coal to Sahiwal coal power plant. He said that the total freight trains run by Pakistan railways had increased to 6,940 in 2016-17 as compared to 2,172 in 2013-14 and said that the trains would increase to 7,858 by end of June 2018. “The leadership trained at Pakistan Railways in my tenure would keep up with the pace of work and I am sure Pakistan Railways will excel in future. The Railways secretary, managing director and chief executive officer of railways have worked hard to improve the Pakistan Railways and it was an uphill task as Railways was suffering in this country since long due to neglect of concerned authorities. Political parties including Pakistan People’s Party and Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf and other parliamentarians also supported us in the uplifting of Railways,” Rafique said and thanked all political parties and officials for their support and said that smooth provision of funds to the Railway Department made it achieve its goals. He also thanked the Secretariat prime minister for its support. While addressing the last press conference of his tenure at Pakistan Railways Headquarter, Rafique avoided commenting on any political issues or questions. Published in Daily Times, May 26th 2018.