It was a sensible decision on the part of the government to direct the PSO to transport oil inside the country through Pakistan railways instead of oil tankers. When it comes to fare, its transport through railways is much cheaper. It was during the stint of the last PPP government that the practice of transportation of oil through railways was discontinued. The oil tankers’mafia had a strong lobby inside the federal bureaucracy as well among the political elite of the country and through their lobby it managed to monopolise oil transportation through tankers.
Experience of hindsight tells us that quite often the oil tankers’mafia resorted to strike to get hike in their transportation charges and many times they did succeed in their objective thus extracting maximum fare from the PSO and scooping fat gains in the process by blackmailing the government.
The oil tankers’mafia is politically very strong and odds are that it would try to persuade the government to take back its decision. The government should never, in any circumstances, go back over its decision. The common man has welcomed this decision which is going to save a lot of money in terms of transportation charges.
There was an old railway track between Rawalpindi and Manzai right up to the gateway of South Waziristan, most of which had been lying in a state of disuse. It could be revived and extended with branch lines to Tal, Balochistan and DI. Khan also. Passenger as well as goods trains can be run on them. If these railway tracks are made functional not only they would provide a cheaper and comfortable mode of travel to the passengers of KPK, Panjab and Balochistan, the trading community would get a cheaper mode of transport for sending its commodities without any let or hindrance.
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