LAHORE, Mar 13 (APP):Pakistan Railways Minister Azam Khan Swati has stressed a proper mechanism of pension disbursement to facilitate pensioners of the department.
Rejecting a news item, telecast by a local channel on Sunday, a spokesperson for Railways regretted creation of a wrong perception about Railways and its minister among people by the channel.
He clarified that the PR was working on distribution of pensions directly through the Accountant General Pakistan Revenues (AGPR) to the accounts of the pensioners. He said that the number of total pensioners of Railways was 123,000 now and the total amount being paid to them was Rs 38 billion per annum.
He said that the minister had written a letter to the finance minister requesting that the federal government might take over the responsibility of the railways pensioners, like the rest of the government departments, so the pensioners could be saved from hassle and they could draw their pensions from their own bank accounts without going to any other office.
He said it should be known to all that the minister wanted to facilitate pensioners and a permanent solution was being find out to the issue. He also said that pensions would be transferred to the pensioners accounts in the next week.
