KARACHI, July 29: The indifferent attitude of the Board of Revenue (Sindh) is hampering investment in the Hawksbay Industrial Estate (Keamari Town) where as many as 2000 industrial units of small and medium size, which could generate much-needed employment and exportable surplus, are not being regularized by the BoR.

Ever since the elected government had taken over the affairs of governance, the bureaucracy in the Land Utilization Department, Board of Revenue (BoR), Sindh, has stopped to regularize and process the documents of plots in the Hawksbay Industrial Estates.

Spread over 2000 acres the Sindh government launched the scheme in 1991-92, with the objective to provide small plots measuring one acre each to small and medium size industries.

But, in 1996-97, the then government of Peoples’ Party, headed by chief minister Abdullah Shah, cancelled the allotments without assigning any reason and constituted a committee. The same committee after some time restored the allotment without changing rates and also issued NOCs.

When the military government took over in October 1999, through an ordinance all the allotments in Hawksbay Industrial Estate (HIE) were cancelled and a committee was constituted. All the powers were vested in the committee which worked for two years and finally gave a proposal to the then governor of Sindh Mohammadmian Soomro to ask owners and allottees to pay an amount of Rs502,550 per acre towards ‘Malkano’ differential and got their allotments restored. In this regard, the government of Sindh also issued an Ordinance III of 2001.

The allottees and owners of these plots somehow managed to pay the differential of ‘Malkano’ and were also allowed a 5 per cent discount on making full and final payments and got their allotments restored after getting the occupancy value, paid by the original allottee, deducted.

But for the last eight months the Board of Revenue (BoR) has stopped to regularize and process the documents of these industrial plots, which has once again created nervousness and panic among prospective investors.

The chairman, Hawksbay Association of Trade and Industries, the representative body of Hawksbay Industrial Estate, Muhammad Anwar Mian Noor told Dawn that the bureaucracy in the BoR is playing cat and mouse with investors. He said each time an allottee or owner of a plot approaches them they simply say that a summery has been sought from them by the high-ups in the Sindh government.

He said that rumours are afloat that the Sindh government again plans to enhance the allotment price of these plots but the question, he said, was that the frequent changes in policy or increase in rates was only damaging the interest of the country as investors lose confidence and look for other areas.

The vice chairman HATI Mohammed Hussain Khandwalla said: “we are unable to utilize our land for any industrial activity and our investment has been blocked.” He further said that already sizeable amount of foreign investment made its way in HIE but inconsistency in government policies had started hampering the flow of investment.

He said that the phase I of HIE had already attracted a number of SMEs, such as rice processing plants, plastic and auto parts manufacturing units but phase II of the scheme was badly jolted by bureaucratic snags.

Khandwalla alleged that no doubt the government was trying to provide facilities to investors but the bureaucracy is not supporting government policies thus discouraging investment. He said presently a number of plants are lying idle because the investors could not construct anything on these plots for want of regularization and NOCs.