LAHORE, May 13: The Pakistan Railways seems to have paved the way for the award of commercial management contract of two railcars to one of its subsidiaries by knocking out the only private party in the competition on technical grounds.

The PR marketing wing had last month invited bids for outsourcing commercial management of Subak Raftar (101-Up/102-Down) and Subak Kharam (103-Up/104-Down), both railcars, running between Rawalpindi and Lahore. The PR Advisory and Consultancy Services Ltd (PRACS) and M/s Four Brothers International (Pvt) Ltd submitted their financial and technical bids.

However, an anomaly surfaced in the technical bid of the M/s Four Brothers “after scrutiny of documents submitted by PRACS”, according to a letter sent to the private company by the PR marketing wing.

Signed by PR Deputy Chief Marketing Manager Arshad Rehmat Ali on behalf of Chief Marketing Manager Imtiaz Rizvi, the letter (No 6-DC/127/6/ACM-VIII/2011/Pt-III) was addressed to the Chief Operating Officer, M/s Four Brothers International (Pvt) Ltd.

Dated May 7, 2012, the letter reads: “I am directed to inform you that your firm has not been (declared) qualified technically by the technical evaluation committee after scrutiny of documents submitted by PRACS. The documents/papers submitted by your firm did not fulfil the prescribed requirement of the bid. “Due to this you are requested to take back un-opened financial bids from the office of the chief marketing manager on any day during office working hours,” the letter concludes.

Registered under the Companies Ordinance 1984 with the Corporate Law Authority in 1984 which was made the Securities and Exchange Commission of Pakistan (SECP) in 1997, PRACS is controlled, manned and funded by the railway ministry or the railway board and claims to have completed more than 200 assignments at home and abroad.