Railways land record to be computerised in two years: Saad Rafique

16 Mar, 2015

LAHORE: Pakistan Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has said the PR land record across the country will be computerised within upcoming two years.

Addressing an agreement signing ceremony between the PR and Punjab Urban Development Unit (PUDU) for the computerisation of railways land record at PR headquarters here on Monday, he said that it was an historical day for the department as no joint efforts had been made for the protection of the PR land for last 67 years.

He said that PR land record was never synchronised with the record of the Punjab Board of Revenue yet but, after the agreement it would be synchronised.

The minister said that 27 teams were being formed for surveying the complete land of the railways which would survey even an inch of the land for further process of computerisation.

He remarked that an amount of Rs 400 million would be spent on the project which would be completed in about two years and he hoped that more land would be added to the PR property after the completion.

He stated that monitoring and verification of the current land position would be possible after computerisation of the land record.

Saad announced the extension of route of the Millat Express train (earlier runs between Karachi and Sargodha) upto Malakwal railway station and said a revenue of Rs 118 million was expected after the extension from additional 0.1 million expected passengers of the train.

He said the number of freight trains had been reached at ten now as there were only three working freight trains when the PML-N government had taken charge.

To a question about occupied property by some hospitals, he said that amount of the Shalamar Hospital land was still due and the hospital administration was asked to pay the amount.

Commenting on the Royal Palm case, he said the case was pending before the court, however, the railways had replied that it did not want to continue with the Royal Palm administration.

Responding to a question about the Business Train, the minister said that contractor had cunningly taken the case to the lower civil court to confused the case so there was a legal bindings regarding this.

He criticised the former policy-makers, and said that nepotism was also a corruption and several agreements were made partially in the railways in which relatives and friends were benefited by keeping the departmental interest aside.

Talking about slums (Kuchi Abadies) made on the PR land, he said a policy about these slums were under process, adding that those people could not be made homeless who were living in these areas.

Appreciating the Punjab government, he said the Punjab government made worthy cooperation regarding revenue recovery, however the other provincial governments were being appealed for cooperation.

The minister also lauded the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa government for returning PR land by following the orders of the Supreme Court.

To a query about the suicide attack on the Churches, he said a terrorist attack was made on the Church but the other terrorism was made by burning common people without investigation.

He said that law enforcement agencies, Pakistan Army, Police and other security departments sacrificed their lives to combat terrorism so torture could not be supported at any cost.

He said that majority or minority both were citizens of the country and they were not allowed to take law in to their hands.

Earlier, the Managing Director PUDU Dr Nasir and PR Project Director Project Management Unit Shakeel Ahmad signed the agreement and exchanged the documents.

PR Chief Executive Officer Javaid Anwar Boobak, PR Police IG Munir A Chishti, former PR GM Anjum Pervaiz and other senior officers of the both department were present.

Copyright APP (Associated Press of Pakistan), 2015

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