LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways (PR) is likely to further increase the fares and freight charges of the express and goods` trains from June 21 following repeated hike in the petroleum products` prices.

There is no plan to increase the fares for those travelling by local passenger trains on short-distance routes originating from various stations across the country, Dawn has learnt.

`At a high-level meeting held on Saturday, it has been decided in principle to increase fares / charges of all express / mail trains by 5 per cent and freight trains by 10 per cent. The new fares / charges are likely to be implemented with effect from June 21 (Tuesday),` an official told Dawn. `It is due to oil prices being increased by the government,` the official said on the request of anonymity.

The PR, while keeping in view the increasing oil prices and other financial constraints, had earlier on June 14 increased the fares of all express passenger trains by 10 per cent and freight charges of all goods` trains by 15pc. However, it dropped the idea of increasing fares of local passenger trains togive relief to a large number of workers / labourers, salaried class etc travelling by these trains for doing jobs in various cities.

According to the minister for railways, the organisation due to increasing oil prices is bearing a massive financial impact of Rs8 billion which is not possible without increasing fares and freight charges. `Since we are left with no option, we have decided to increase fares of all express passenger trains by 10pc and freight trains by 15pc, Khwaja Saad Rafique had said at a press conference on June 14.

He criticised the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf government for causing massive destruction of the PR which, according to him, was in profit during the PML-N`s 2013-18 regime.

The PR reportedly requires more than 1.5 million litres of oil (diesel) worth Rs20 billion annually for its passenger and freight train operation that is 30 per cent of its total operational cost. Around 70 million passengers use railways for travel in a year and several freight companies use it for goods transportation. The department has 15 sites where the locomotives` fueltanks are Elled.

The PR had earlier got conducted a third-party evaluation/ audit of the aforementioned sitesand identiñed various loopholes/ leakages causing around Rs1.5bn loss to its revenue. These included outlived fuel storage tanks, absence of modern fuel dispensers, improper calibration, fuel theft, wastage and absence of a performance-based and technologydriven system.

On May 16, the PR and the PSO signed an agreement under which the former leased out its various pieces of land to the latter for setting up / modernising the storage facility for ensuring timely oil supplies. The PR had earlier in 1982 leased out some chunks of its land to the PSO, which continued to be used by the company to store oil for supplies to the PR.

Later, a dispute between the two state-owned entities developed and eventually the land agreement couldn`t be extended and signed since 2018. The legal teams of both the organisations drafted the new agreement after the certain issues were resolved. The 15 sites leased out included one each at Akora Khattak, Kundlan, Sargodha, Gujranwala, Sahiwal, Mahmoodkot and Hyderabad and two each at Kot Lakhpat (Lahore), Faisalabad, Badami Bagh (Lahore) and Vehari. The sites were leased out for six years with effect from June 30, 2018.