The Senate’s standing committee on railways on Tuesday directed the Punjab Revenue Board to ensure the recovery and handing over of railways land from the Bahawalpur Defence Housing Authority (DHA) within three weeks along with a report in this regard.
“This committee wants to regain 34 acres of land from the housing society before the next meeting, which is likely to be held by the end of March in Lahore,” said Senator and Committee Chairman Fateh Muhammad Hassani.
The committee met here under with Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafiq, other ministry officials, and the revenue boards of all four provinces.
The railways minister said that the government of Punjab should resolve the dispute and that the Punjab Revenue Board should hand over the land to the railways ministry. He said that the Bahawlpur deputy commissioner had mistakenly allotted the land to the DHA and the Punjab Revenue Board had admitted its mistake in this regard. “Revenue officials and the DHA must resolve the matter immediately,” said the minister.
The panel also expressed its annoyance over the absence of the chief secretaries of all the provinces from the meeting despite sending notices for them to be present before the meeting for a briefing on the important matter of encroachments on railways land across the country. The chairman of the committee issued directions to ensure the presence of Punjab chief secretary in the next meeting.
An official of the railways ministry briefed the committee about the ministry’s plan for the prevention of railway accidents. They said that the old system was installed at every level crossing and that the ministry was introducing new measures to minimize the rate of railway accidents in the future. A study is under process to modernize the entire railway system, the official said.
Talking about modernization of the Pakistan Railways, Khawaja Saad Rafiq said that the tracking of trains through GPS, medical and psychological tests of drivers, assistant drivers, and gatekeeper, installation of two modern plants for the checking of trains at Karachi and Lahore, traffic signal system at level crossings, modern communication systems and other measures were under consideration to bring reforms to the outdated system.
The minister, while talking to the media after the meeting said that a feasibility study is in process for the up-gradation of the ML-1. He said that the study will be concluded soon and work on up-gradation of the ML-1 will start by the end of the current year.
