ISLAMABAD: Pakistan Railways has sought suggestions from the citizens to name 20 trains, including two for VVIPs, to be launched during the current fiscal year.

A prize of Rs25,000 will be awarded to the person whose suggested name would be selected, said an official in the Ministry of Railways.

The names must be submitted to the Pakistan Railways headquarters Lahore by March 1. He said Pakistan Railways received good response from passengers after it introduced new trains. Now it has been decided to operate more trains.

All trains are operating with above 70pc capacity which increases up to 100pc on weekends and only one train - Mianwali Express - is operating on less than 70pc of its capacity, he said.

Teams caught 6,712 ticket dodgers from trains during the last one week and collected Rs70 million from them in the form of fare and fine, said the official.

In reply to a question, he said the department retrieved 133 acres across the country from unauthorised occupants during the ongoing campaign.

He said the railways retrieved 12.498 acres commercial, residential and agricultural land in Peshawar division, 2.99 acres in Rawalpindi division, 19,898 acres in Lahore, 70.21 acres in Multan, 19.563 acres in Sukkur, 7.10 acres in Karachi and 1.6 acres in Quetta.

He said a policy has been formulated to prevent further encroachments and if any new encroachment occurs in future the officials concerned will be held responsible.

He said a standard operating procedure and a joint procedure order have been issued for strict implementation of the policy.

A project for computerisation of railway land record has also been initiated in order to harmonise with the record of all the provincial revenue departments, he added.

Published in Dawn, January 28th, 2019