Royal Palm Club, Railways housing societies: PAC seeks briefing on Railways' internal probe reports

Public Accounts Committee (PAC) on Wednesday sought briefing on the internal inquiry reports of Pakistan Railways on Royal Palm Club, Railways housing societies and lease deeds of Railways land in next meeting. Syed Khurshid Shah chaired the meeting of the committee, which reviewed the five years performance of Pakistan Railways.
Officials of Pakistan Railways claimed that the performance of the PR has improved as the Railways had been surpassing the revenue target for the last three years. Citing example, they said the Railways earned Rs 35 billion against a target of Rs 30 billion in financial year 2015-16. Overdraft of Railways reduced from Rs 40 billion to Rs 34 billion.
The officials said that the management is expecting to generate Rs 37 billion revenue in the current financial year. The officials further informed the committee that Rs 14 billion worth of Railways land was encroached upon during the last six years. As a result of concert steps by management, 3,555 acres of land have been retrieved while 4,202 acres of land still under illegal possession.
The officials maintained that they are working with Pakistan Army and Rangers to get the Railways land regularised, which has been occupied by the forces. "Rs 4.65 billion have been received as rent of the properties of Railways situated in four provinces," they said. Talking about the future strategy, the officials said that Pakistan Railways is going to purchase 55 locomotives from a US company. First consignment would be expected to reach by January 2017, they added. The tendering of ML-1 track (Peshawar to Karachi) is under process. Mughalpura Carriage Factory and Risalpur Factory are being upgraded. A proposal is under consideration to run some projects under public private partnership. The management of Railways is also pursuing a court case in Supreme Court of Pakistan against delay in transferring title of land by provincial governments to Railways.