Pakistan Railways (PR) has invited bids for privatisation of five passenger trains from Thursday (tomorrow) at railways headquarters. The trains being privatised are: Fareed Express runs between Lahore-Karachi via Kasur and Pakpattan, Shaheen Express runs between Sialkot-Karachi via Faisalabad, Super Express runs between Malakwal -Karachi via Faisalabad and two rail cars between Lahore-Faisalabad.
A pre-bid conference chaired by Syed Imtiaz Hussain Rizvi, Chief Marketing Officer was held at Railways Headquarters on Tuesday. The representatives of interested parties for the bids were present. 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 of 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 the Railways told journalists after the meeting that bidding would start on Thursday (tomorrow) and conclude on 2nd March for submission of the bids.
The Railways has decided that it would fix the benchmark for 70 percent occupancy for express trains and 80 percent for rail cars and no bid would be accepted below this potential. Chief Marketing Officer Rizvi said that representatives of eight parties had expressed interest in pre-bidding conference. Responding to a query he said the Railways was not giving priority to earn in bidding but they wanted to improve the service criteria to facilitate the passengers, he added.