PAC seeks details of Railways land, housing colonies

ISLAMABAD: The Public Accounts Committee (PAC) Wednesday sought details of the Railways housing colonies and its land on lease from the Ministry of Pakistan Railways. Besides it, the PAC also sought the detailed briefing from the Pakistan Railways on the Royal Palm Club and its land in its next meeting.

The PAC held its meeting Wednesday with the chair of its Chairman Syed Khursheed Shah in which Pakistan Railways gave a briefing to the committee on its three year performance and examined the audit paras relating to Pakistan Railways for the year 2013-14.

The officials of Pakistan Railways told the committee that it had closed down 131 stations in last five years and it had 440 locomotives and out of it 280 locomotives were operational. The officials of Pakistan Railway told the committee that orders for purchase of 55 locomotives were placed and these were being bought from the United States and the supply of locomotive will be started from January, next year.

The officials of Pakistan Railways told the committee that its land worth of Rs14 billion was illegally occupied in last six years and it was difficult to recover the land from illegal occupants. The officials said that there were three types of the illegal occupation as one by the common people, while the second occupied by the government departments and third by Rangers and Armed forces. “The land in occupation of Rangers and armed forces were got vacated,” they told the committee.

While briefing the five-years performance of Pakistan Railways, the officials told the committee that the total length of railways line in 1999 was 11,526km and in 2016 it was 11,778, in 1999 there were 689 stations and in 2016 there were 558 railways stations and it reduced to 131 in last five years.

The committee members expressed their dismay over the closure of 131 railways stations and PAC member remarked that earlier Pakistan Railways took a stance that these were closed due to non-operational and now it claimed these were closed due to close section.

The Railway official told the committee that it had earned Rs13 billion from freight trains. They told the committee that Railways earned the more money in last three years as for 2015-16, the revenue target was Rs30 billion but it earned a revenue of Rs36 billion and it is expected that during this financial year it could earn more than Rs7 billion.