Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif has directed authorities to use railway land for commercial purposes to help fund the upgradation of Main Line-1 (ML-1), as the government seeks to make Pakistan Railways financially self-sufficient.
Chairing a meeting on railway reforms on Wednesday, the prime minister called for faster progress on ML-1 and the introduction of corporate-style reforms to strengthen the railway system and improve its financial position.
Shehbaz directed authorities to develop ML-1 on a commercial basis by utilizing railway land worth billions of rupees that has been encroached upon. He also praised the National Accountability Bureau and the Ministry of Railways for their joint efforts to identify and recover the encroached land.
In a separate meeting on access to finance, the prime minister directed authorities to remove obstacles preventing the flow of financing to housing, agriculture and small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
He called for a more effective lending system and asked the Small and Medium Enterprises Development Authority (SMEDA) to take steps to strengthen the capacity of SMEs.
The meeting also reviewed the National Bank of Pakistan’s lending performance. Shehbaz welcomed the bank’s 76 percent loan approval rate for housing finance and urged other provinces to digitize their land records on the Punjab model to make it easier for banks to provide housing loans.
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