Bidders spoil ‘lucrative’ cattle market auction
The Cantonment Board Rawalpindi had to face extreme embarrassment after contractors, gathered for the auctioning bid of the cattle market ahead of Eidul Azha on Wednesday, offered a much lower price.
All the contractors, who participated in the cattle market auction last year and booked an auction for Rs89.5 million, pooled this time and made an offer of only Rs50m. ‘After getting disappointed’, the Cantonment Board has prepared a strategy for the re-auction.
The auctioning of the Bhatta Ground cattle market, which was auctioned for Rs7m, Rs70m and Rs89.5m in the past, was held at the Cantonment Board’s office yesterday. When the cantonment administration started the auction with Rs89.5m, all the contractors gave a bid of Rs50m in the first attempt and continued with the same bid despite repeated attempts. To this, the cantonment administration declared the first attempt of the auction as a failure and decided to set a new date for the next auction.
Sources said that the next auction would be conducted with a new strategy to get higher bids than last year's auction and any attempt for polling by the bidders would be thwarted.
Published in The Express Tribune, April 25th, 2024.