Bidding of 5 passenger trains to start tomorrow

Staff Report

LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways (PR) will open bidding for privatisation of five passenger trains from Thursday (tomorrow) at Railways Headquarters, it was learnt on Tuesday.

The trains being privatised are Fareed Express running between Lahore-Karachi via Kasur and Pakpattan, Shaheen Express between Sialkot-Karachi via Faisalabad, Super Express between Malakwal-Karachi via Faisalabad and two rail cars between Lahore-Faisalabad.

A pre-bid conference chaired by Chief Marketing Officer Imtiaz Hussain Rizvi was held at Railways Headquarters. The representatives of interested parties for bidding the trains were present on the occasion. The railways officials told the participants that they would submit technical and financial bids in two separate envelopes. The railways administration would accept the bids only for those interested parties who have strong commercial and financial background. The railways officials also answered different questions raised by the bidders in the meeting, sources said.

A senior officer of railways told journalists after the meeting that bidding would start on February 23 and March 2 was the last date for submission of bids. It was principally decided that railways would fix the benchmark for 70 percent occupancy for express trains and 80 percent for rail cars and no bid would be acceptable on below this potential.

Rizvi said that representatives of eight parties expressed interest in pre-bidding conference. To a query he said railways was not giving priority for earning in bidding but we want to improve the service criteria to facilitate the passengers, he added.

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