LAHORE: The Punjab Urban Unit and the Pakistan Railways reached an agreement for computerisation of the latter’s land at a cost of Rs400 million in the next two years, said Shakil Ahmed, project director of the Railways Land.
A signing ceremony was held at railways headquarter where Railways minister Khawaja Saad Rafique and CEO Javid Anwar Bobak were also present. Under the deal, 27 teams will make survey of the department land. It was informed that out of 167,000 acres total land of the Railways, around 3,000 acres were illegally occupied.
On the occasion, the minister termed the agreement as landmark and vowed to bring the department’s lost glory back. He regretted the lower courts, in majority of cases, issued stay orders in favour of the encroachers without hearing the Railways point of view. He requested the Supreme Court to take action on the matter.
He termed the kachi abadis by poor on some railways’ land as a human matter but added that no compromise will be made with the professional grabbers. He said that only KPK transferred the Railways land to the department while the remaining provinces so far had not obeyed the Supreme Court’s direction.
