LAHORE: The ongoing foggy spell has not only disrupted the rail traffic but also has started ‘casting its spell’ on the efforts of Pakistan Railways (PR) to generate revenue by involving private sector in the cargo transportation.

“The tender documents for four cargo express trains will now be opened at 2.30pm instead of 10.30am on Jan 12,” an official of the PR marketing wing told Dawn on Thursday.

Expression of interest for operating four cargo express trains under public-private partnership from Faisalabad, Sialkot, Peshawar and Sukkur to Karachi was sought through an advertisement in national dailies on Dec 16.

The bidding documents under single-stage two-envelop procedure of PPRA rules were to be submitted by 10:30am on Dec 30 and the technical documents would be opened half an hour later in the presence of contractors or their designated representatives.

Initially, the PR planned to operate cargo express trains twice a week from Peshawar, Sialkot and Rohri, and thrice a week from Faisalabad to Karachi. Later, the trains might be run daily, subject to availability of cargo.

However, contractors interested in participating in the process appealed to the PR administration to extend the closing date of tenders because bid documents could not be issued to them till Dec 25.

Through another advertisement on Dec 28, the PR administration invited the interested parties to attend a pre-bid conference on Jan 8 while extending the tender document submission date to Jan 12 till 10.30am.

Some 30 or so contractors purchased the bid documents but only six parties could make it to the PR headquarters in Lahore on Thursday (Jan 8) because of `chilly and foggy’ weather, a participant of the pre-bid conference said.

“The PR authorities agreed to extend the time to submit bid documents because of harsh weather,” said the participant.

Published in Dawn, January 9th, 2015

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