March 21, 2007	Wednesday	Rabi-ul-Awwal 1, 1428

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LAHORE, March 20: The National Assembly Standing Committee on Railways has advised the PR administration not to lease out its prime location properties and should devise ways and means to utilise its non-core real estate land instead for revenue generation.

The practice of handing over railways prime land to private parties at throwaway prices should come to an end, NA body chairman Sardar Tufail Ahmad observed while presiding over the last session of committee’s two-day meeting here on Tuesday.

Railways Board chairman Ijaz Qureshi agreed to this assertion of the NA body, according to some participants in the meeting that began with a briefing on Mughalpura Workshops at the office of its Divisional Superintendent Noor Ahmad.

It was a surprise for a number of NA body members to see equipment and machinery installed at various sections of the workshops dating back to 1900s. Two former divisional superintendents of Mughalpura Workshops informed the NA body that in the past scores of employees were sacked without following rules and regulations.

“This resulted in severe shortage of technical staff in the workshops and adversely affected its production. Furthermore, the move also had its financial impact as railways had to pay millions of rupees in arrears to the employees who were reinstated by service tribunals and other courts of law,” said Mushtaq Khan Jadoon and Farooq Aziz who now have become general managers in the railways.

The NA body expressed displeasure over the non-availability of facilities to the technical staff at the workshops and recommended that the services of employees in this category should be regularised on permanent basis and offered incentives.

Board chairman Ijaz Qureshi said proposals to improve the production of the workshops would be presented to the NA body within a month. Railways general manager (operations) Asad Saeed said the obsolete equipment and machinery at the workshops were being replaced with latest gadgets in phases.

The NA body also asked the PR high-ups to improve basic civic amenities at the residential colonies and construct new houses there to accommodate more employees.