PAKISTAN Railways has become synonymous with the image of a decaying organisation: accident-prone, loss-making and inefficient. Not many are willing to admit that mismanagement, unsteady wagons, rickety tracks and 18th-century mindset have reduced the Railways to a near-death existence. Even when it reluctantly continues to chug, rattle and rumble, everyone knows that it is managed and operated in a way not much different from a lorry adda across the road. The only option left seems to lie in the old Dakota Indian tribal wisdom: “When you discover that you are riding a dead horse, the best strategy is to dismount.”

Pakistan Railways has simply run out of steam. A meltdown was only natural. Managerially, technically and financially bankrupt, it finds it impossible to transport passengers and goods safely and efficiently. It is headed by a bureaucrat and a politician. While declaring a railway emergency, the only actions the minister in charge could think of were punishments received by schoolchildren. Come to work on Sundays, no leave for three months, send daily reports (homework) to the ministry and use trains for travelling on duty.

Even a novice would immediately figure out the........

© Dawn