Pakistan Railways (PR) has warned Four Brothers International, the private operators of Business Express, to deposit their outstanding amount more than Rs 40 million in railways accounts till Friday (today) March 16. The railways administration also intimidated that they could not give more financial relief to private operators and they should respect the agreement signed in this regard.
Talking to Business Recorder, PR Additional General Manager, Syed Imtiaz Hussain Rizvi, said that private operators had acknowledged in a written agreement they would submit Rs 3.1 million as an advance amount on daily basis in railways accounts but they were delaying their instalments.
He said railways administration had allowed a commercial stop at Hyderabad on the request of Business Express operators but department would not allow another commercial stop at Rahimyar Khan. Rizvi said that Shalimar Express had proved a good experience than Business Express. Shalimar Express had become 100 percent successful train under public-private partnership and private operators were depositing Rs 10 million on every Monday as an advance instalment.
This train was a combination of AC lower and economy classes and passengers preferred it for journey. "The passenger trains operating by PR are ensuring punctuality after competition with private operators and after completing the doubling of track project, passenger trains would become more punctual", Rizvi added.
After the railways officials last warning, a delegation led by CEO Business Express, Zafar Iqbal Choudhry, Ejaz Ahmad, Chief Operating Officer held a meeting with Acting General Manager (Operations) Junaid Qureshi at railways headquarters. The both side representatives discussed the outstanding amount issue.
Ejaz Ahmad, CCO Business Express said after the meeting that they congratulated Junaid Qureshi over assuming his charge and they did not discuss any other matter. He said during the last meeting railways officials had demanded to give a payment schedule against short instalments. We would inform about the payment schedule to the railways authorities within next two days and hopefully the payment issue would be resolved amicably, Ejaz maintained.
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