Railways land record to be computerized soon: NA told

F.P. Report

ISLAMABAD: Parliamentary Secretary for Cabinet Secretariat Raja Muhammad Javed Ikhlas on Thursday informed the National Assembly that a project to computerize railways land record will be completed soon.

Responding to a question during question hour, he said, that the project will ensure safeguarding railways land through a computerized monitoring system and will render total transparency in land management.

As a result of these steps, he said, Pakistan Railways has managed to retrieve 3721 acres railway land. He said that detailed survey was carried out by the Pakistan Railways to identify encroached land occupied by the individual encroachers and under illegal occupation of government departments.

He said that the anti-encroachment campaign is being monitored by the Divisional Superintendents, Headquarters office and at the level of Ministry of Railways.

“A comprehensive policy has been drawn to prevent further encroachments” he added.

Javed Ikhlas said that FIRs are being lodged and cases are forwarded to Railway judicial Magistrates for expeditious trial after registration. During the current campaign, he said, 3993 cases were registered and 4333 accused were arrested during the anti-encroachment operations.

He said that the accused involved in 2318 cases were convicted whereas 43 accused were acquitted by the courts of law. He said as many as 158 cases are under investigation. Responding to another question, he said that there is no delay in the start of MI-I project under CPEC.

He said that up-gradation of Main Line-1 (ML-I) of Pakistan Railways from Karachi to Peshawarand Taxila to Havelian and establishment of dry port near Havelian is an “Early Harvest Project” under CPEC framework.

“It is spread over 1876 kilometers. It starts from Karachi and passes through Hyderabad, Rhori, Multan, Lahore, Rawalpindi to Peshawar and Taxila to Havelian,” he added.