LAHORE: The Pakistan Railways (PR) has cancelled all property auctions done from Oct 20 to 23 and postponed the auction scheduled for Oct 24 to 27 in Lahore.

The auctions were cancelled after Federal Minister for Railways Muhammad Hanif Abbasi took notice of the media reports that had pointed out transparency issues, Dawn has learnt.

“We have cancelled auctions of all warehouses and other properties held from Oct 20 to 23 and others scheduled till Oct 27 in the light of the price (Rs220 per sq ft) offered against the benchmark of Rs200 per sq ft. This is less than we expected,” Mr Abbasi explained while talking to Dawn on Thursday.

“Next, we will fix a benchmark of Rs300 and try our level best to get an offer of up to Rs350 per sq ft.”

The minister said several railways properties would be open for auction in the near future and all procedures would be transparent.

“These auctions would be monitored by the officers very strictly. Besides, all proceedings would be recorded properly in a bid to ensure transparency.”

Mr Abbasi claimed that he, earlier, saved billions of rupees in bidding/auction of the luggage vans and express cargo.

The minister shared his plan to run a cargo train in the near future for which 35 wagons would be received by the railways till Nov 15, followed by another 15 till Nov 30.

It is pertinent to mention that the Ministry of Railways had earlier entrusted the Rawalpindi divisional superintendent (DS) with the additional charge of the office of Lahore DS for a brief period of just three days (Oct 20 to 22) despite availability of officers in Lahore that had raised eyebrows. The decision to assign the look-after charge to the Rawalpindi DS was seen as an effort to allegedly ‘facilitate’ certain elements in winning significant auctions of railway godowns and others in Badami Bagh and other prime spots for a period of five years and even more.

However, later, on the orders of the minister, the ministry cancelled its earlier orders, entrusting another officer (Yousaf Leghari, chief mechanical engineer) with the Lahore DS charge for three days. But this decision couldn’t remove the concerns related to scheduled auctions and finally it forced the railways authorities to cancel the auctions.

The properties included four godowns at Sher Shah Road (Lahore), measuring 25, 10, 50 and 40 marlas, respectively (auctioned on Oct 20 & 21), one parking stand at truck adda, measuring 42 marla and one parking stand near L-Xing No-4 Lahore, measuring 20 marla (auctioned on Oct 20 and 21), one shop at SDR shopping centre No-4 measuring 100 feet (Oct 20 and 21), one restaurant at BBG near parking stand measuring five marla (Oct 20 and 21), one godown near L-Xing No 43 BTW GRW-GRWC measuring 1.12 kanal (Oct 22), two bays under Garhi Shahu bridge measuring 3,000 sq ft (Oct 20 and 21), a parking stand near L-Xing No-9 measuring 3,000 sq ft (Oct 20 and 21), a site for godown on the Railway Road measuring 3.5 marla (Oct 20 and 21) and 10 shops at cement godown (Oct 20 and 21).

Published in Dawn, October 24th, 2025