15,025.44 acres railways land leased out: Senate told

ISLAMABAD: The government has informed the Senate that an area of 15025.44 acres of Pakistan Railways has been licensed/leased out for various purposes, fetching Rs12770.02 million revenue during the last ten years.

Minister for Railways Sh. Rashid Ahmed told the House during the question hour on Wednesday that besides this arrangement, railways land was also leased out to the government departments for 21 to 33 years as per the policy.

Giving break-up of the land leased out, the minister explained that from 2008 to 2017, from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa 656.98 million acres were leased out, 12667.30 million acres from Punjab, 1560.13 million acres from Sindh and 137.25 million acres from Balochistan and 3.79 million acres from Pakistan Railways network.

He explained that the assessment of commercial site was conducted through approved accredited evaluators of Pakistan Banning Association/the State Bank of Pakistan for fixing a benchmark and then advertised for leasing in leading newspapers.

For agricultural purposes: through competitive bidding by fixing 'ousat bay' rate as reserve price for open auction for a lease term of three years for cultivable land and extendable for another three years for barren land.

For premium shops: through competitive bidding by fixing the reserve price of premium and monthly rent on the basis of market rate of the locality for a lease term of ten years.

Stacking purposes: through bidding for a year and extendable for another year. Nursery purposes: through bidding for a term of three years, extendable for another two years. Parking stands: land is leased out on yearly basis for already developed stands. For new parking sites, lease term is three years, extendable for another two years.

PML-N Senator Kalsoom Perveen asked about details of the railways land auctioned, leased or rented out during the last ten years, also with the procedure adopted for and amount received.