ISLAMABAD: Over 200 acres of commercial and residential land of Pakistan Railways was under illegal occupation of the various departments of provincial governments of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (KP) and Punjab.

Around 113.55 acres railways land were under unauthorized utilization of different government departments of Punjab and 87.017 acres under the government of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, sources in the Ministry of Railways said.

Giving details of the railways land in Punjab, they said 95.56 acres land were under unauthorized use of Revenue Department of Attock City, 9.99 acres possessed by Board of Revenue Mianwali, 3.81 acres by Education Department Punjab for construction of school in Mianwali, 3.69 acres by Attock Tehsil Municipal Office and 0.5 acres by Highway Punjab Mianwali.

In Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, they said 46 acres land was being used unauthorized by Bannu District Government, 22.33 acres by Health Department of Nowshera, 11.509 acres by Traffic Police, Revenue Departments of Peshawar, 6.77 acres by Police Department of Hangu and Lakki Marwat and 0.048 acre by District Police Kohat.

The sources said special campaign for removal of encroachment had been launched in the divisions resulting in retrieval of 51.40 acres of railways land from the land grabbers.

They said division was actively carrying out campaign against the land mafia to retrieve valuable state land with the help of concerned district administration and as well as district railway police.

One major factor which makes hurdles in retrieval of railways land was stay order from the courts as presently about 185 land cases were under trial in different courts, which were also vigorously followed in the light of orders passed by the Supreme Court, they added.

They said Pakistan Railways had owned 167,690 acres land across the country out of which Punjab had 90,326 acres, Sindh 39,428 acres, Balochistan 28,228 acres and Khyber Pakhtunkhwa had 9,708 acres.

They said the Geographic Information System (GIS) survey had also been conducted under a project regarding computerization of railway land records, in which all the encroachments and leases had been recorded in the Pakistan Railways Land Management Information System (PRLMS) software.

“Pakistan Railways has reserved 12,808 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.