Railways to recover dues from centre, provinces

The Ministry of Railways has expedited the efforts and approached the federal and provincial departments to recover outstanding billion of rupees dues on account of using its land and other services.

“Railways Minister Khawaja Saad Rafique has asked the official concerned to approach the federal and provincial departments for recovering the outstanding amount as soon as possible,” an official in the ministry said on Sunday.

The official said that an amount of over Rs8375 million (over 8 billion) was payable by different departments.

The federal departments have to pay an amount of Rs709 million, provincial departments Rs1980 million and autonomous and private bodies Rs5685 million, he claimed.

Pakistan Railways (PR), he said, has upgraded as many as 167 vulnerable un-manned level crossings to manned level crossings. The relevant provincial government provided the finances to the ministry for the upgradation of unmanned level crossings across the country, he added.

The official said that the unmanned level crossings were without gate leaves.

“There are a total of 1,565 unmanned level crossings over the entire railway network and the up-gradation of any unmanned or manned level crossing is the responsibility of road-owning authority,” he added.

He said that a joint survey of the PR and the provincial governments was also conducted in 2013-14 to identify accident-prone unmanned level crossings across the country.

The official said that it also mentioned Section 12 of the Railway Act of 1890 that the district administration or road authority should bear the expenses for the upgrade of these unmanned level crossings. APP