Railways Retrieve 16 Acres Commercial Land From Khyber Pakhtunkhwa

Pakistan Railways has retrieved 16.052 acres commercial land pertaining to Peshawar, Dargai, Mardan, Nowshera and Mardan stations from encroachers and unauthorized government departments

ISLAMABAD, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 18th Dec, 2017 ) :Pakistan Railways has retrieved 16.052 acres commercial land pertaining to Peshawar, Dargai, Mardan, Nowshera and Mardan stations from encroachers and unauthorized government departments.

A detailed survey was carried out to identify encroached land, illegally occupied by the individual encroachers and unauthorized government departments, an official in the Ministry of Railways told APP.

He said a comprehensive policy had been drawn up to prevent further encroachments, adding this policy made the Pakistan Railways official and police jointly responsible in case of any new encroachment.

Standard Operating Procedure and joint procedure orders have been issued for strict implementation of this policy, he added. He said first information reports were being lodged and cases were registered and sent to Railways judicial magistrates for expeditious trial.

During the current campaign against the encroachers, 80 cases have been registered and 78 accused have been arrested, the official said. He said as many as 77 cases had been decided by the courts so far in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and the issue regarding illegal occupation/ possession of Railways land by government institutions had also been taken up with departments concerned.

The official said the encroachment campaign was being monitored by the divisional superintendents, headquarters office and at the level of Ministry of Railways. To a question, he said it was a fact that passenger train service on Nowshera- Dargai Charsadda- Mardan section had been discontinued since January 31, 2000 and there was no proposal under consideration to restore passenger train service on this section in near future.