KARACHI, Feb 10: The Pakistan Railway Workers Federation has expressed concern over awarding dining car contract to one group and ignoring contractors from Sindh, Balochistan and the NWFP.

In a press release issued on Monday, PRWF President Manzoor Razi alleged that the contract of all dining cars in various trains were being awarded to a group of contractors from Lahore.

He claimed that Karachi’s contractors had offered the highest bid of Rs2 million for maintaining dining cars in the newly-introduced Karakoram Express, but the contract was awarded to Lahore’s group for Rs1.7 million.

He asked the minister for the railways, Ghaus Bux Mehr, and chairman railways, Saeeduz Zafar, to intervene in the matter and stop ignoring the contractors from other provinces to mitigate the growing sense of deprivation among them.

Mr Razi claimed that the railway department had been focussing on beautification of all major railway stations in Punjab, while the stations in other provinces, including Sindh, were being ignored.