PESHAWAR, Feb 1: The Khyber Teaching Hospital Peshawar has illegally occupied Pakistan Railways’ property and is reluctant to vacate the land despite several notices, sources said here on Friday.

The KTH had requested the Railways authorities for the land adjacent to the casualty department for car-parking for doctors and emergency patients on humanitarian grounds on the condition that no parking fee would be charged for the facility.

The sources said that the railways divisional superintendent office granted the land to the KTH administration for three years on lease for only three rupees.

They said that after the expiry of the lease the railways administration extended the contract on the same amount for another three years. But after expiry of the second lease contract, the KTH administration auctioned the land for commercial car parking without informing the railways department, they alleged.

In this connection the railways authorities served several notices and twice held high-level meetings with the KTH administration, but the later adopted delaying tactics to linger on the issue, they said.

The railroad department is now demanding Rs400,000 on the grounds of using its land for commercial purpose and urging the KTH administration to vacate the land immediately.

During the meeting, the sources said, the Khyber Teaching Hospital administration was insisting that the railways authorities should raise the issue with Governor NWFP Iftikhar Hussain Shah as he was patron- in-chief of the hospital.

The railways department urged the KTH administration to pay all the amount got from the contractors and offered to share the auctioned money in future, they said. But the KTH administration was unwilling to fulfil both the demands, they added.