Some 4,400 acres of Pakistan Railways (PR) land is under un-authorized occupation of institutions and private persons in all over the provinces of the country right now. Giving details, a Ministry of Railways official told APP that around 382 acres land was under un-authorized occupation in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, 1,937 acres in Punjab, 1,510 acres in Sindh and 571 acres in Balochistan province. To a question, he said that Pakistan Railways had retrieved around 305 acres commercial, agriculture and residential land from the illegal occupants in four provinces since last two years. The official said that the department recovered around 202 acres agriculture, 75 acres commercial and 27 acres residential land from the land grabbers in four provinces. He said that the Railways land was primarily used for operational purpose or is reserved for future expansion/development works. However, he said that Pakistan Railways also leases its surplus land all over the network for various purposes such as commercial and agricultural purposes etc as per Engineering Code Para 607 “Management of Land”. The land was leased out through competitive bidding after advertisement in the newspaper, in a transparent manner, generating handsome revenue from commercial leasing of Railway land such as premium shops/khokha shops, agriculture purposes, parking stands and stacking etc, he added.