Around 1,068 Hectares Of Railway Land Is Under Encroachment: Railway Minister

New Delhi, March 27: Around 1,068 hectares of land owned by Indian Railways is under encroachment across the country, which is only 0.21 per cent of the total 4.99 lakh hectares of land, Railway Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw informed the Rajya Sabha on Friday.

Replying to supplementary queries during Question Hour, the minister said that if one sees the utilisation of all railway land, nearly 80 per cent of the land is near the tracks, 5 per cent around it, while the remaining 15 per cent of land is used for development of stations, colonies, hospitals and other things.

“Around 0.21 per cent of Railway land is under illegal encroachment in the country,” he told members in the House.

“It is correct that this illegal encroachment on land is a serious problem. Action has also been taken, but timely action has also been taken from time to time. But every time such an action is taken, a humanitarian approach is adopted, as the poorest people have set up jhuggis on railway land. Wherever possible, a practical solution has been taken together with state governments,” he said.

He also informed the Upper House that several good initiatives have been taken to protect railway land. Among the technological steps taken, he said, complete digitisation of railway land has been done, and electronic land records have been put on a portal.

“Each and every plot of land has been properly mapped and electronically preserved. Surveys have also been done through drones and satellite images of the land of all railway land. Overall, further encroachment has been stopped significantly.

“There have been some good examples of getting railway land vacated. In Surat, we have worked together with the state government, which assured to provide houses under the PM Awas Yojna to those who had encroached railway land. Hence, a humanitarian approach was adopted, and land was vacated, and development work was taken forward,” he told the members.

He said wherever states help, they yield good results, and the issue of land comes under the state government, and hence the centre works together with state governments.

The minister said the Railways is using two basic technologies — satellite technology and second is drone-based surveys and both produce maps, and then the same is compared with our reference maps to find out, through AI and algorithms.