Supreme Court again asks govt to overhaul railways.

Byline: Nasir Iqbal

ISLAMABAD -- Frequent deadly train accidents led the Supreme Court on Thursday to question the state of affairs at the Pakistan Railways as it regretted that the department was not being run in a professional manner.

'PR is not being operated in accordance with the Rules and Manuals of the railways as a result of which accidents are taking place frequently in which precious lives are being lost and great damage to the railways is caused,' deplored a two-judge bench comprising Chief Justice Gulzar Ahmed and Justice Ijaz-ul-Ahsan, which had taken up a suo motu case relating to the colossal losses incurred by the PR.

Earlier also on June 12, the Supreme Court had highlighted the need for revamping of the PR and had deplored that the department could not function properly with a big surplus of employees who were not only incompetent but also insincere to their institution.

'There seems to be nothing in sight by which the operation of the railways in Pakistan could be improved as not only is the infrastructure of the railways altogether bad and non-workable but also its employees are apparently not fit to operate the Railways,' observed the Supreme Court.

The court advised the government to ponder over the operations of the PR and initiate an overhaul of the department from top to bottom to ensure that the railways operated safely.

'We expect that such measures will be taken by the government immediately to ensure that the railways do not play with the lives of...