November 11, 2007	Sunday	Shawwal 29, 1428

KARACHI, Nov 10: The Sindh Privatisation Commission (SPC) hopes to earn Rs2 billion from the sale of properties of the defunct Sindh Road Transport Corporation (SRTC) against a liability of Rs900 million, sources at the commission revealed on Friday.The commission is to invite expressions of interest (EoIs) shortly from the SBP approved asset evaluators to bid for evaluation of the SRTC properties, which are mainly bus depots and workshops in Karachi, Hyderabad and other interior towns.

The Sindh cabinet recently appointed a committee to engage an evaluator for the job and to approve the assessment value of the assets to dispose them of accordingly.

The committee consists of secretaries of finance, industries, local government and law.

The committee has been authorised to fix a base price for the sale of the former bus company assets.

Under a government decision earlier the SRTC properties, which are at prime location, would be offered to the district governments at the prevailing market price with a view to ensure the usage of land in line with the city/towns plan.

Sources disclosed that of the sale proceeds, Rs662 million would be utilised to retire a loan obtained from the finance ministry to pay off to the employees under a Golden Handshake Scheme (GHS) implemented in 2002.

The remainder of the Rs900 million liabilities are dues against the SRTC under the Annual Development Plan (ADP).

Another major agenda before the commission is sale of unfinished grain silos built by the NLC on 11.7 acres on Superhighway.

The Rs70 million silos project, for which the wheat handling equipment was also imported, was abandoned for some unknown reasons.

The commission hopes to fetch substantial income from the sale of project because the value of land in the area has increased manifold since it was allotted for the project.

It has written to the Sindh Board of Revenue to evaluate the value of land in the area.

Once the reserve price of the project (land plus equipment) is approved by the committee the commission will invite bids from the interested parties.

Due to the absence of a chairman of SPC for over a year, the commission’s privatisation agenda has moved at snail’s pace. Under the rules, the SPC chairman should be from the private sector.

The last such chairman resigned in June 2006 and since then no new head has been appointed.

A summary for the appointment of a new chairman is pending with the chief minister for the last several months but there has been no response yet, sources at the commission said.