Islamabad, 26th March, 2018: 25th meeting of the Standing Committee on Railways was held today in Committee Room No.2, Parliament House, Islamabad. Mr. Ramesh Lal, MNA presided over the meeting under rule 216(2) of the Rules of the Procedure and Conduct of Business in the National Assembly, 2007 as Syed Naveed Qamar, MNA, Chairman of the Standing Committee could not attend the meeting.
 
2.    The meeting started with the recitation of the Holy Quran. The Committee confirmed the minutes of its previous meeting held on 29th December, 2017.
 
 
3.      The Committee was given briefing by Ministry of Railways on its budgetary proposals relating to the Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP) for the financial year, 2018-19. It was informed that the Ministry has proposed an amount of Rs.7.300 billion for the ongoing and new projects. The Ministry has allocated 96% of the total amount for the completion of ongoing projects and 4% for the new projects. It was informed that the most of the running projects would be completed during current financial year.
 
4.      The Committee recommended that the projects of Pakistan Railways may be given priority by the government, specially the Main Line 2 (ML-2) for its early completion.
 
5.     The  Committee  decided  to  appoint  a  Sub-Committee  under  the   convenership of Mr. Ramesh Lal, MNA to examine the issue of encroachment on Pakistan Railways’ land.
 
6.     The Hon. Members/MNA’s Syed Muhammad Saqlain Bukhari, Rana Zahid Hussain Khan, Mr. Rasheed Ahmed Khan, Ms. Phyllis Azeem, Dr Nisar Ahmad Jatt, Engr. Hamid-ul-Haq Khalil, Mr. Amjad Ali Khan, Mr Sajid Ahmed, Qari Muhammad Yousaf and Ms. Naseema Hafeez Panezai attended the meeting besides the senior officers from the Ministry of Railways along with their staff.