Railways facing huge sustainability gap, NA committee told

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistan Railways continues to face a significant sustainability gap, with its immediate obligations more than 10 times higher than the current operational surplus, a National Assembly panel was told on Thursday.

“Against a current operational surplus of Rs2.4 billion, immediate obligations amount to Rs27.4 billion, highlighting a structural funding shortfall that requires strategic support and long-term financial restructuring to ensure sustainable operations,” Paki­stan Railways’ member of finance told the National Assembly’s Stan­ding Committee on Parli­amentary Affairs, which met here with Rana Iradat Sharif Khan, MNA, in the chair.

The secretary of parliamentary affairs briefed the committee on the status of complaints received about Pakistan Railways pensioners to the Prime Minister’s Delivery Unit.

The member of finance told the committee that PR has undertaken active liability management to address longstanding emp­loyee obligations, disbursing Rs5.622bn tow­ards commutation payments (cleared up to 31 May, 2023) and Rs1.103bn towards leave encashment (cleared up to 31 March, 2024).

He said while these measures reflect improved financial discipline and commitment to institutional responsibility, the huge gap between available resources and the obligations warranted some action.

The representative from National Highway Authority (NHA) briefed the committee on the problems caused by traffic congestion on the Motorway Toll Plaza near Phoolnagar, Qasoor district.

The committee was informed that in compliance with the approval of NHA Executive Board for revenue enhancement a new toll plaza was established at Phoolnagar, located at KM 1215-1216 in March 2025.

Initially, a temporary structured toll plaza (3 × lanes on each side) was established on the existing road. Due to limited numbers of lanes, traffic congestion occurred frequently.

Due to establishment of new toll collection regime, the commuters’ response was very slow for toll payments, resulting in long queues of locals at toll booths. Currently, a new 12-lane (6x lanes each side) toll plaza is 90 per cent completed.

Published in Dawn, February 20th, 2026



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