PESHAWAR, Sept 27: The prospects for the revival of Pak-Holland Metal Project brightened after NWFP’s planning and development department forwarded the PC-I for its third phase, officials maintained on Friday.

They said that while a decision in this regard would take some time but the project had been brought out of suspension.

Successive provincial governments, they said, ignored the project after withdrawal of financial assistance by a foreign donor.

They said that infrastructure — developed with heavy public sector investment — to establish a ‘common facility centre’ at Peshawar to facilitate small industries remained unutilized for years.

The centre, part of the Pak-Holland Metal Project, was launched in 1986 with the technical and major financial support from the Dutch government to develop small-scale industries and workshops in the province, they said. The common facility centre, they added, was to be established at Peshawar to promote small industries.

However, the establishment of CFC was jeoperdized after the donor agency abandoned the project.

The CFC was to house a foundry and testing unit, a forging shop, a heat treatment unit and a surface treatment unit, enabling small industries to carry out engineering processes without having to develop their own facilities.

Interestingly, the PC-I for the third phase of the project was approved by the department concerned in October, 1998, and was estimated to cost Rs71.764 million of which Rs54 million was to come from the Dutch government and the remaining amount was to be raised by the provincial government.

Officials said that the industries department had once again initiated efforts to persuade government for executing the third phase of the project.