http://www.dawn.com/2006/05/22/nat12.htm


Foreign firms to be offered access to rail network




By A Reporter

ISLAMABAD, May 21: Federal Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmad announced on Sunday an ambitious plan to make Pakistan Railways a viable, profitable and passenger-friendly organisation.

“I want to give Pakistan Railways a new look on European pattern,” said Sheikh Rashid while speaking at a press conference in Islamabad.

He will give an open policy on May 30, exactly one month after taking over as the minister for railways.

He said gates of Pakistan Railways would be opened to foreign companies by offering them access to track on two routes — Peshawar to Karachi and Rawalpindi to Karachi.

Shaikh Rashid said he would prefer reputed international railway networks to operate on these routes, which would not only improve the quality of service but also create a healthy competition.

I dont believe that privatising the railways is the right step at this moment in Pakistan. The quality may improve and competition may increase but does the Govt have the money to maintain the infrestructure?
If the Govt can maintain its own rail network then the private companies will not only be getting access to Pakistans consumers but they will be have been given the ideal excuse not to perform by the Govt. The minister needs to give more details for instance what European countries do have successful private railways,the UK has failed miserably with the tax payer subsidising private companies share prices while the service of the railways has decreased.
Although I maybe wrong but in the UK rail privatisation has flopped so I can only look at the Pakistan rail privatisation statement with dread.

you are right about the UK, privatisation of the railways has been dreadful. However, i think in Germany the railways are run by private companies and are doing very well.

Allah railways ko bachai Sheikh Rashid say

Thanks hellraiser, I will read about the German experiance but I think with Germanys high tax rate there might be subsidies involved while in Englands case of low tax and under investment for decades the scale of the upgrading of BR was underestimated.

basically like you said in the UK case there was massive under-investment in the railways. the most investment was carried out just before privitisation and it is now often debated about whether privitisation was really neccessary if the investment was finally being done and managers were finally working (relatively) efficiently.

in the pakistan case i think the privitisation can work but i think the govt needs to look at the UK case and study it thoroughly. pakistan should privitise the rolling stock and allow competition. when it comes to the infrastructure however there is either the option of keeping it nationalised or contracting it out to a firm which is then answerable to the railways ministry. seeing as how croonyism is bound to come into either solution it really just seems to be which is the lesser of two evils with regards to maintainence. personnally for the time being i would only privitise the rolling stock and at the same time increase investment in maintainence (which i would keep nationalised).

Pakistans railways are a joke, our whole infrastructure until recently was a joke but now our expressways are coming on really well. We should invest in railways and new carrages from China and our airports need a massive upgrade like new Islamabad air port

why invest in our railways when we can get someone else to invest both money and expertise. Pakistan railways will require huge investment to bring it up to international standards. Better to let someone else do that. Maybe the Arabs will buy Pak railways as well!

Well said. Infact if you look at the way railways is here in US, I think that's what Pakistan govt should try to do. The railway tracks as well as the coaches and the land is privately owned. In this case its like the airline business. Some company owns the tracks and runs its own operations as well as allow others to use its tracks and charge fee for using its tracks.

Now in Pakistan either the govt can establish an authority like the CAA which owns the tracks and charges private railway companies to pay service charges or it can privatize tracks based on different routes and allow the private companies to maintain them.

I personally think the govt should keep the land and the tracks and have multiple tracks on busy routes through out the country and let the private companies run their coaches on those tracks. This will allow more effeciency in the railway system and competition.

But if the govt wants to go ahead with this then two things need to be done.

1. Seperate the cargo tracks from that of passenger tracks to allow more space for both types of services. This will result in time and cost savings for both services.

2. The train stations need to be expanded to accomodate more terminals for private companies without making them bottle necks.

But I think its a right step. With more companies in competition, the services will become more effecient and cheaper. Even if there are two or three companies running Pindi-Karachi service, I would like to have a choice to pick one based on their quality of service, effeciency and safety records.

We shouldn't limit ourselves. One of the most strategic assets of our country is its infrastructure and it has to be privatized and expanded to the max to make the best out of it.