ISLAMABAD, March 3: The government will develop a “Techtown” in Islamabad to set up electrical, information technology, telecommunication, new materials and related vendor industry.

The Ministry of Science and Technology (MoST) will coordinate the plan to seek investment and develop I-12 as environment-friendly industrial sector.

The ministry has asked Capital Development Authority to update PC-1 for the Techtown proposed to be built in the sector, well-placed sources told Dawn .

In the last meeting of the steering committee and a subsequent meeting held between the CDA chairman and science ministry secretary, it was said that the authority needed to revise the PC-1 of Techtown to cover cost escalations and other necessary inputs to be provided by the said ministry.

As Techtown plan is being monitored by a steering committee so far 12 meetings had been held in this regard. In a meeting convened on 15 July, 2000 it was told that no progress had been made to implement the project.

However, an experts committee was therefore constituted to submit a report highlighting the issues involved and recommend feasible report with this regard.

The committee submitted its report wherein one of the recommended report option was that firms be invited to develop Techtown on built operate own (BOO) or built operate transfer (BOT) basis.

In order to gauge the interest of reputable firms MoST invited Letters of Interests (LOI) from local and foreign firms. More than 10 proposals were received and in the end three were short listed but to no avail.

A list of industries that will qualify for Techtown has been prepared in consultation with the concerned experts such as telecommunications, electronics, information technology, pharmaceutical industry, renewable energies, space technology, new materials, bio-technologies, hydraulic and vacuum systems, related vendor industry and consultancy services.

Several educational institutions are also approaching the ministry for land in Techtown. But Cabinet Committee on Investment CCOI will be the final authority to approve the industries indicated in the list and housing of relevant educational institutions in Techtown.

It may be mentioned that in December 1988 the CCOI directed CDA to accommodate general environment friendly industries in sector I-12 reserved for Techtown.

In sheer violation of the proposed project, CDA also included plots for general industries. Since the scheme was originally meant for electronic industries as approved by Ecnec in 1996, therefore, MoST objected to this plan, sources said.

As a result, CCOI asked the ministry to prepare a summary indicating the industries that will qualify for Techtown. The submission of this summary was held up after the approval of a competent authority in MoST, as other feasible options for the development of Techtown were under consideration, sources added.