Railway devises plan to outsource Royal Palm Club.

LAHORE -- Pakistan Railways in a meeting presided over by Secretary/Chairman Dr Habibur Rehman Gillani finally devised a business plan on Saturday to outsource the Royal Palm Golf and Country Club under directions of the Supreme Court of Pakistan.

Under the plan, it was decided to outsource the club to an international firm having expertise to run such projects in a professional manner. It was told in the meeting that when the PR management committee had taken over the club, there were a lot of issues which were settled amicably. The committee so far earnedRs381.185 million revenue. It also spent Rs339.053m million on paying salaries of employees during the period from July 2019 to May 2020. Thus the committee earned a net profit of Rs42.751m.

The participants were further briefed that the management [so farl did not sack any employee of the club. Moreover, [international] tendering is also in process and the operator will make it compliant with the world standard.

At the time of taking over the club, eight golf courts out of 33 were operative and railway engineers operationalised another 10.

After cutting of the grass the golf courts were made standardised and well-equipped and various contests were arranged. The committee also ensured an enabling environment to attract international bidders and being a state-of-the-art facility, it will get a unique cultural status besides enhancing railway revenue.

The meeting was attended by IG R ailways Arif Nawaz Khan, Chief Executive OfficerDost Ali Leghari, Additional General Managers Zubair Shafi Ghouri, Nisar Ahmed Memon, Sulman Sadiq, Project Director PMU Hafeezullah Khan and other senior officials.

`We want to present this club as socioeconomic uplift of Lahore and its residents, as we don`t desire this organisation reflect a commercial project,` PR Chairman Dr Gilani told Dawn when contacted.

He said...