Pakistan Railway (PR) officials are involved in grabbing of 167,690 acres land of Railways worth Rs 245.817 billion across the country and are a major hurdle in the way of retrieving railway properties.
This was disclosed by Senator Abdul Ghaffar Qureshi Convener Sub-Committee of the Senate Standing Committee on Railways and Senator Dr Abdul Khaliq Pirzada after a meeting with Railways officials held here at Railways Headquarter on Monday. Nearly 15000 acers of land has been grabbed by federal government and provincial departments/organisation including Pakistan Rangers, Pakistan Army and Janbaz Forces.
According to the documents available with Business Recorder presented in the meeting of Sub-Committee of the Standing Committee on Railways the categories of PR land are as follows: operational land (126,426 acres) with estimated value of Rs90.695 billion; residential land (5,234 acres) worth Rs89.108 billion; agriculture land (34,325 acres) having estimated value of Rs10.857 billion and commercial land (1,705 acres) worth Rs55.157 billion, totalling Rs245.817 billion.
Of 126426 acres of operational land, unauthorized katchi abadis have grabbed 4231 acres, land under katchi abadis (regularised) 403 acres, land leased out for various purposes 19133 acres, land having high commercial potential 600 acres and barren/uncultivable land 16897 acres.
The details of railways land encroached upon by individuals showed that 169 acres of land is illegally occupied in Peshawar, 35 acres in Rawalpindi, 1788 acres in Lahore, 38 acres in Mughalpura (Lahore), 212 acres in Multan, 238 acres in Sukkur, 246 acres in Karachi and 333 acres in Quetta.
Land under occupation of various government departments and institutions totalled 1,172 acres of which 227 acres was in Peshawar, 79 acres in Rawalpindi, 581 acres in Lahore, 27 acres in Multan, 22 acres in Sukkur, 3 acres in Karachi and 233 acres in Quetta.
Pakistan Railways had leased out 19133 acres of which 16998 acres were used for agriculture purposes, 98 acres for stocking of goods, shops/khokhas 82 acres, parking areas 15 acres, Pakistan Railways Housing Societies 1137 acres, oil companies/depots 107 acres, food departments 430 acres, other government departments 28 acres and long-term marketing and mega projects 238 acres.
The province-wise details of land possessed by Pakistan Railways showed 90326 acres of land in Punjab, 39428 acres in Sindh, 28228 acres in Balochistan and 9707 acres in Khyber-Puktunkhwa.
Earlier, the participants of the meeting discussed the progress to retrieve land grabbed by Shalimar Hospital Mugulpura and expressed dissatisfaction over the efforts made by the Railways and Police officials to retrieve it. The committee directed Railways officials to speed up their efforts in order to complete this task.
Senator Qureshi said that a committee comprising high ups of the Pakistan Railways would meet heads of the federal and provincial for vacation of the railways residential, commercial and agriculture properties. General Manager Operations has already had meetings with the concerned departments, he added.
He said that Railways administration has prepared a comprehensive report about the encroachments land leases and land grabbed, which would be presented in the parliament so that the Prime Minister could take necessary action.