LAHORE, Jan 31: The Pakistan Railways will be inviting fresh international tenders on Feb 20 to replace the existing signalling system on its network while ignoring a bona fide contractor that has a Letter of Indent (LoI) revived twice to carry out the project.
The LoI was first signed on July 3, 2003, after four rounds of tenders, participated in by two Chinese companies, sources said and recalled an agreement for the award of contract was signed in the presence of President Pervez Musharraf and his Chinese counterpart Hu Jintao in Beijing on Nov 3, 2003.
The National Accountability Bureau had also cleared the LoI signed between the PR and the China National Machinery Import and Export Corporation (CMC) that was first unilaterly withdrawn on March 18, 2005.
Later, during a tender committee meeting on Sept 28 and 29, 2005, the CMC was asked “to offer CBI system for all stations from Bombardier or Westinghouse as provided in para 3 of the LoI.”
In the meanwhile, the Central Development Working Party recommended the project on Jan 24, 2004, while asking the CMC to improve its China Exim financing. The Chinese company successfully negotiated an interest rate of around 4.2 per cent composite average on a 15-year basis. The finance division (External finance division) of the Pakistan’s finance ministry conveyed approval to the CMC that had agreed to extend the project period to six years from the earlier four-year term owing to financial constrains of Islamabad.
However, the PR high-ups managed to create a confusion over the project by concealing facts from the deputy chairman of the Planning Commission in a presentation made on Jan 3 last year. The Railways Ministry team that gave the presentation had no person having adequate knowledge of the signalling system on the PR network. The team made Planning Commission’s Member (Infrastructure) Malik Saeed Khan say “the PR invited tenders for the signalling project in 2001 i.e. about five years ago and there has been a lot of development in technology since then. The package offered by the sole bidder at that time would not have had addressed the technological changes.”
A copy of the minutes of the presentation was sent to the CMC that lodged a strong protest with the ministries of finance and railways through the Chinese Embassy in Pakistan. The CMC has yet to get a response to its protest letter.
Meanwhile, the PR high-ups managed to get a vague and diabolical memo from one of the loosing bidders in the 2001 tender process that “the Rohri-Lahore modern signalling project can be executed at lower cost if changes in specifications are permitted.”
The PR high-ups, the sources claimed, used the vague memo to conceal facts from the president and the prime minister besides the Planning Commission.
According to a senior railway officer, who was involved in the bidding process, the project not only included computer interlocking within the perimeters of the large railway stations but also for the first time in the main line outside the stations would have automatic train control or operations.
At least 250 locomotives for main line operations were to be equipped with cab signalling equipment as part of the auto-block system (ABS) on main line between 65 stations from Rohri to Lahore.
“The system included full automation of the track control, level crossings and even auto-braking of locomotives in case the driver fails to observe the electronic cautions of conditions on tracks ahead,” he said.
“The automatic train control (ATC) on main lines outside and inside stations is a critical protection against overshoot of train and minimises the chances of human error. The recent fatal accident at the Sarhad railway station was a system failure and not a simple case of human error,” the officer said.
The agreement with the CMC was singed after several rounds of bidding and evaluation of the tenders, the officer said. The financial package for the project was revised to the extent of the satisfaction of Pakistani side in June 2004 through negotiations between the CMC and Islamabad on the request of the Ministry of Finance for reducing the interest.
The CMC also agreed to extend the project period from four to six years in line with the budgetary constraints of the PR while the value of the LoI was to remain US$111 million.
Under the two-phase project, the CMC was to provide electronic interlocking at stations and auto-block on double line from Rohri to Shahdara and semi-automatic block on single line from Lodhran to Khanewal.
The Rohri to Khanewal phase was to be completed within three-and-a-half to four years while the Khanewal to Shahdara phase was to be accomplished within two to three years. The Rohri to Mirpur Mathelo section within the phase-I was to be completed first to undergo a one-year trial period without affecting the continuation of the ongoing installation activities.
The work on the modern signalling system would shortly be undertaken, the railway officials said and added that the CMC costs were excessive and that new priority and phasing led to the cancellation of the LoI.
“The Chinese had made their bid in 2001 when no external agency was willing to invest in Pakistan due to sanctions on account of nuclear issue... the bid was accepted due to the need and importance of the signalling system. At present, funding can be secured from many sources on better terms. Thus in the interest of transparency, we must make a fresh call, asking for new terms and conditions from probable donor agencies worldwide,” railway officials said.