State advocate-general Balai Ray on July 29 submitted a copy of a draft Bill on commercial use of vacant railway land in Calcutta High Court during the hearing of a case pertaining to the eviction of squatters along Rabindra Sarobar.

The Central government will table the Bill in the Lok Sabha for enacting a law on use of vacant railway land for commercial purposes. The parliamentary standing committee in charge of railway affairs has approved the Bill after making some changes to the draft.

Once enacted, the Railway (Amendment Bill), 2004, will empower the Centre to establish the Railway Land Development Authority to exercise power and discharge the functions with regard to development of railway land for commercial use.

As per the Bill, the member engineer, Railway Board, shall be the chairman of the authority. The vice-chairman and other members will be appointed by the Union government from amongst persons working in the civil engineering, finance and traffic sections of the railway.

Placing the Bill before the high court, advocate-general Ray quoted the standing committee?s recommendation: ?While preparing the scheme for development of the railway land, the railway should take a humanitarian view of settlement of colonies that have existed for over 50-60 years.?

Railway sources said that huge plots along railway tracks across West Bengal, owned by the railway, were lying vacant. Ten per cent of the lands have been illegally occupied. If the railway succeeds in evicting the settlers along the tracks between Ballygunge and Tollygunge, it will create a precedent for other such cases, they added.

?If the railway sells the Lakes squatters a vacant plot at a reasonable rate, that will set an example. Settlers along railway tracks elsewhere may be encouraged by the deal,? said Trinamul Congress MLA and advocate Kalyan Banerjee, who is holding the brief for the squatters in court.

The division bench of Calcutta High Court, comprising Chief Justice V.S. Sirpurkar and Justice A.K. Ganguly, has asked the railway to furnish to the court a list of vacant land in the state by August 24.