191 acres railway land under occupation in Hyderabad: NA told

ISLAMABAD: Railways Ministry in a written reply informed the National Assembly that 191 acres of railways land is under illegal occupation in Hyderabad while 0.71 acre mostly residential land has been retrieved from encroachers.

Giving a breakup, the ministry said 185 acres is under unauthorized Katchi Abadis, five acres under residential encroachment while one acre is under commercial encroachment.

The ministry has taken many steps to retrieve the land under illegal occupation and FIRs have been lodged besides seeking assistance of District Coordination Officers (DCOs) for deployment of district police with railway police for effective actions against encroachers.

Regular anti encroachment operations are also being conducted with the help of district and railway police.

To another question, the ministry told that there is no loco shop at Hyderabad. However, carriage and wagons shop is functioning in the district.

At present major repairs (periodical overhauling and nominated repairs) of locomotives, passenger carriages and freight wagons are being carried out at locomotive workshops Rawalpindi, Mughalpura Lahore, Karachi and Hyderabad.

Ministry for Foreign Affairs in a written reply told that as many as 317 officials have been appointed in various cadres in the ministry since 2008 to date.

All out efforts have been made to observe the five per cent quota fixed for minorities in all these appointment and eight officials from minorities were also recruited.