“The land was leased and licensed out for various purposes including premium shops, stacking, agriculture and parking stands etc,” an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP. Giving province wise breakup, the official said that Pakistan Railways has leased out 5,132 acres in Punjab, 833 in Sindh, 470 in KP and 59 acres in Balochistan.
To a question, he said that railway administration carried out six anti encroachment operations to retrieve its encroached lands.
The official said that a total of 3594.488 acres Railway land has been retrieved with the assistance of Railway Police and District Administration. In the initial phase, started from February 2012, Railway land measuring 2537.166 acres was retrieved from encroachers.
To another question, he said that Pakistan Railways has retrieved 16.052 acres commercial land at Peshawar, Dargai, Mardan, Nowshera and Mardan stations from encroachers and un-authorized government departments.
“A detailed survey was carried out to identify encroached land, illegally occupied by the individual encroachers and un-authorized government departments,” he added. He said that a comprehensive policy has been drawn up to prevent further encroachments, adding this policy makes the concerned Pakistan Railway Official and Railway Police jointly responsible in case of any new encroachment.
“Standard Operating Procedure (SoP) and joint Procedure orders have since been issued for strict implementation of this policy,” the official added.
He said that First Information Reports (FIRs) are being lodged and cases are registered and sent to Railway Judicial Magistrates for expeditious trial.
The official said the encroachment campaign is being monitored by the Divisional Superintendents, Headquarters office and at the level of Ministry of In the recent campaign against the land encroachers on the directives of Minister for Railways Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, Pakistan Railways successfully retrieved 8.5 kanal railways land worth Rs 30.4 million from illegal land grabbers in Okara, he added.
The official said the land grabbers had made cattle yards and taxi stand at the railways land illegally.
In another operation, he said Pakistan Railways team conducted a raid in Hafizabad railway station and retrieved four-kanal land worth Rs 16 million from the land encroachers.