ISLAMABAD: Railways Division in cooperation with the Energy Ministry will serve disconnection of utilities services notices to encroachers on Railways land, a parliamentary panel issued directives on Wednesday.

Noor Alam Khan chairing the meeting of the Public Accounts Committee (PAC) issued directives that the Energy Ministry (Power/Petroleum) would disconnect the utility connections of electricity, gas, and other to those illegal occupations on railway land identified by the Railway Division.

Secretary Railways Mazhar Ali Shah briefed the committee that around Rs4.463 billion worth of 3,598.20 acres residential, commercial, and agricultural land of the entity was encroached all over the country and a three-phase model was at the final stages to get the land vacated from encroachers.

Member Committee Syed Hussain Tariq said the plots allotted in housing societies of railway’s land which were sold at much higher prices in the open market were illegal.

The secretary agreed that the practice had happened in the past. He said that nine housing societies were allowed NOC and registered as cooperative housing societies. He assured the committee that the ministry would look into the complaint of Syed Hussain Tariq.

Earlier, in a sub-committee on the Ministry of National Food Security and Research of monitoring and implementation was revealed that there are no procurement rules and human resource rules have been made since 1973, while the ministry is dealing Rs540 billion worth of procurement. Syed Hussain Tariq had convened the committee.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2023