Over Rs 159 million irregularities detected in Railways

The Auditor General of Pakistan has detected more than Rs 159.224 million irregularities in Pakistan Railways. The audit report on the accounts of Pakistan Railways for year 2005-06 says that the financial position of Pakistan Railways is not sound and is deteriorating from year-to- year.
There is no marked improvement in the passenger services and their lifting capacity is also diminishing. The authorities suffered shortage of material valuing Rs 27.308 million during the stock verification of stores of Permanent Way Inspectors (PWIs) of Karachi division from March 2000 to February 2005 but shortage was neither investigated nor responsibility was fixed and loss recovered.
Pakistan Railways code for the store department says that each case of shortage should be clearly investigated whether it is due to the negligence, carelessness or dishonesty of any railway employee.
The authorities have failed to recover an amount of Rs 19.936 million from different government departments including Rs 9.183 million from Sui Northern Gas Pipeline Ltd, Rs 9.153 from National Highway Authority and Municipal Committee, Kotri and Rs 1.60 million from Provincial Highway Division, Rawalpindi.
Pakistan Railways has also failed to recover Rs 6.248 million from October 1998 to November 2004 from the Iranian State Railways pertaining to Mirjawa-Zahidan section.
In a sheer violation of rules, an amount of Rs 3.019 million was paid to the non-entitled employees by the Mechanical Engineering and Marketing Department during July 1999 to January 2005.
In another case, the contractor was paid excess at compound rate instead of simple rate of 5 percent per annum, which resulted in over-payment of Rs 1.650 million during June 1993 to September 1998. The national kitty suffered a loss of Rs 6.334 million due to import of defective material.
Pakistan Railways suffered a loss of Rs 32.069 million due to non-recovery of demurrage and wharfage charges. Contrary to the laid down rules, an amount of Rs 23.65 million was not recovered from Wapda, Defence, PSO and Railways on account of demurrage and wharfage charges while delivering the consignments during the period of 1992-93 to 2002-03.
Managing Director, RAILCOP purchased five vehicles valuing Rs 3.458 million in 2003-04 and 2004-05 without obtaining no-objection certificate from the cabinet division.