LAHORE: Officials of the Pakistan Railways (PR) IT Directorate have restored online ticketing at 60 stations across the country, and they are also working to recover the data.

The PR management has constituted two committees to probe into the Jan 26 system breakdown that has been restored through using host server of the National Telecom Corporation, according to a senior PR official.

“At present we are trying to recover data, out of which the payroll and other financial management/transactions have been recovered so far,” PR Chief Commercial Manager Farooq Iqbal Malik told Dawn on Thursday.

“Now the efforts for recovering other important data, such as freight management systems and other applications/data, are underway,” Malik, who also holds the additional charge of the PR IT director, maintained.

He said since the core objective of the team was to restore the online reservation system and recover data first, it had yet to find out the reasons behind the glitch. He said two committees had been constituted to probe into the issue.

“One is an internal committee and the other external. The internal committee has some senior officials, including additional general managers and general managers (all are grade-20/21 officers). I am supposed to assist this committee being the officiating head of the IT directorate,” he explained, adding the external committee headed by an independent IT expert from the private sector, has been constituted on the orders of Railways Minister Azam Khan Swati.

The ministry issued on Thursday transfer/posting orders of various senior officials, including the divisional superintendent (Lahore).

According to a notification issued on Thursday, Muhammad Hafeezullah (Project Management Unit head / BS-20) was transferred and posted as property and land director general.

Pervaiz Ahmad (Director Property / Land, BS-20) was transferred and posted as PMU in charge. Amir Nisar Chaudhry (DS, Lahore, BS-19) was transferred and posted as chief engineer (surveys & construction).

Muhammad Nasir Khalily (Deputy Project Director/BS-19) was transferred and posted as Lahore DS. Services of Qamarul Zaman Bhatti (PR Walton Training Academy’s Joint Director, BS-19) were placed at the disposal of the CEO for his further posting as director (property/land, Rawalpindi/Peshawar). Amjad Iqbal, deputy chief engineer (track) was transferred and posted as director (property/land, Lahore and Multan). In another notification, the ministry also posted Shah Rukh Afshar as welfare and special initiatives GM.

“The suspension of officers is also expected in the coming days keeping in view the finding of the inquiries related to Jan 26 e-system and server breakdown,” an official source in the PR told this reporter.

Published in Dawn, January 29th, 2021