ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways is planning to utilize across the country 10,913 acres barren land by executing various projects to earn more revenue for the department.
“Pakistan Railways has 8424 acres barren land in Punjab, 1346 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 263 in Sindh and 880 acres in Balochistan,” sources in the Ministry of Railways told APP.
Giving details, they said the department owns 1,67,690 acres land all over the country, out of which 90326 situated in Punjab, 39428 in Sindh, 28228 in Balochistan and 9,708 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa.
They said that Pakistan Railways had leased out 15172 acres land for various purposes across the country and 3330 acres land is under encroachments of different government departments and individual .
The sources said Pakistan Railways was using 1086 acres land for Railway Housing Societies in four provinces and 806 acres land is under the utilization of regular and non-regular Katchi Abadies.“Pakistan Railways has reserved 12808 acres land in four provinces for future operational use including 4364 acres in Punjab, 1800 acres in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 900 acres in Sindh and 5744 acres in Balochistan,” they added.
To a question, they said that during the last three year of the present government, Pakistan Railways has leased out 6496 acres railway land across the country to different departments and private persons to generate extra revenue.
"The land was leased and licensed out for various purposes including premium shops, stacking, agricultural and parking stands etc," they added. Giving province wise breakup, they said that Pakistan Railways has leased out 5,132 acres in Punjab, 833 in Sindh, 470 in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and 59 acres in Balochistan.
To another question, they said that Railway Administration carried out six anti encroachment operations to retrieve its encroached lands from government departments and individuals. They said that a total of 3594.488 acres Railway land has been retrieved with the assistance of Railway Police and District Administration since 01-2-2012 till 31-8-2017.