Railways has retrieved a total of 112.67 hectares of encroached land in the last three years, Lok Sabha was informed today.
Responding to supplementaries, Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu said encroachments caused bottlenecks at certain locations and safety hazards in train operations. Ultimately, it affects the revenue of railways which may not be feasible to assess.
He said out of 4.58 lakh hectares of land available with the railways, 930 hectares or 0.20 per cent was under encorachment as of March last year.
About 0.47 lakh hectares of Railway land was vacant and was mostly in the form of narrow strips along the tracks, which is required for servicing and maintenance of tracks, bridges and other railway infrastructure.
Prabhu said the vacant land which is immediately not required for operational purposes was utilised in the interim period for commercial development through Rail Land Development Authority to mobilise additional financial resources.
He told members that rehabilitation of people who have encroached railway land could be carried out in cooperation with district and state agencies for which Railway was open to provide monetary assistance.
