ISLAMABAD – Pakistan Railways is all set to utilize its 10913 acres barrenland across the country by executing various projects under public privatepartnership to earn more revenue for the department.

“The department owns 1,67,690 acres land all over the country, out of which90326 in Punjab, 39428 in Sindh, 28228 in Balochistan and 9708 in KhyberPakhtunkhwa,” an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.

Regarding the barren land, he said that Pakistan Railways has 8424 acresbarren land in Punjab, 1346 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 263 in Sindh and 880 inBalochistan.

He said that Pakistan Railways had leased out 15172 acres land for variouspurposes across the country and around 3330 acres land was underencroachments of different government departments and individual.

Pakistan Railways was using 1086 acres land for Railway Housing Societiesin four provinces and 806 acres land was under the utilization of regularand non-regular Katchi Abadies, he added.

“Pakistan Railways has reserved 12808 acres land in four provinces forfuture operational use including 4364 acres in Punjab, 1800 acres in KhyberPakhtunkhwa, 900 acres in Sindh and 5744 acres in Balochistan,” he said.

To a question, he said that Pakistan Railways has leased out around 6496acres railway land across the country to different departments and privatepersons to generate extra revenue.“The land was leased and licensed out for various purposes includingpremium shops, stacking, agricultural and parking stands etc,” he added.

Giving province wise breakup, he said that Pakistan Railways has leased out5,132 acres in Punjab, 833 in Sindh, 470 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 59 acresin Balochistan. – APP