Daily Times

PESHAWAR: Standing Committee on Railway has vows to retrieve the railway’s land from the grabbers across the country.

During a media briefing here at Cantonment Railway Station (CRS) on Monday, members of the Sub Committee of National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways (SCNASC) headed by its convener Ramesh Lal said that there were influential people who had grabbed the lands of the Pakistan Railway and the SCNASC will retrieve the land from them at any cost.

Flanked by members including MNAs Eng Hamidul-Haq from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP), Naseema Panizai from Quetta and Irfan Dogar from Punjab along with Divisional Superintendent (DS) Peshawar Division Muhammad Sufiyan Sarfaraz Dogar, the convener regretted that the railway’s lands had been occupied but the officials of the concerned departments were unaware in this regard. The railway official, he expressed his grave concern over encroaching of the railway’s land and silence of the concerned officers and alleged that the lands of the railway in Rawalpindi had been grabbed by someone at a large scale since long but there was none to retrieve from the land.

In Peshawar division, the convener informed that there was total 16250 acre lands of the Pakistan railway encroached, out of which 350 acre were grabbed while 150 of the occupied were retrieved and the rest is to be taken back from the encroachers.

Earlier, a meeting of the NSSC was held here at cantt railway station, the DS of Peshawar briefed the members of the NSSC regarding encroached lands and activities like Safari train from Peshawar to Attock and negotiation with Political Administration (PA) Khyber Agency for revival of Safari train from Peshawar Landi Kotal. Eng Hamidul-Haq on the occasion said that he had already demanded of the federal government to give the railway’s land to the people through open auction as there are hundreds of people working alongside or on the railway lands from Peshawar to Hayatabad.

He informed that City Circular Railway was being started soon and the Districts including Charsadda, Nowshera, Mardan and Dargai will be part of the city circular,

Responding to a query, he said that there were railway tracks in different districts of the province but unfortunately, due to lack of engines, the tracks are useless.

The DS Peshawar also shared his efforts for revival of the Safari train said, he had a meeting with PA Khyber agency and also conducted a survey to resume the Safari train from Peshawar to Landi Kotal adding that the estimates about dilapidated track is yet be to made in order to restore it.

Later, the sub-committee of the national standing committee on railway encroachment paid visit to the grabbed in Peshawar.

PTI MNA presents himself for accountability: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Member National Assembly (NA-3) Sajid Nawaz presents himself before the public to be accountable under the Right to Information Law (RTI Law). This he stated in a Seminar arranged by Right to Information Commission & Right to Public Services Commission for district councilors of Union Council Mathra here in Ameer Abad Patwar Payan on Monday.