KARACHI, Sept 16: Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will be briefed on Monday of the reasons for the painfully slow progress, in last three years, on the Textile City project near Port Qasim, by the management team.

“There is no development at all,” a leader of textile industry remarked who recalled that “textile investors were promised developed plots of land in Textile City by June 2004.” He pointed out that these plots had not been offered for allotment even in June 2005, and it was doubtful if these would be given in June 2006.

For this inordinate delay, one civic agency is blaming the other agency. No infrastructure has been laid to supply water. The KESC has not provided facilities for supply of power neither there is any development to provide gas. Even roads have not been laid and entry points to industrial area are getting clogged by the emerging encroachments.

Acquisition of industrial land in Port Qasim area by the genuine investors is becoming a big scandal where the official price is said to have been increased from Rs1 million to Rs2 million per acre without any signs of development of infrastructure facilities.

In last few years the big business from Karachi and Lahore are said to have targeted Port Qasim industrial area for their speculative business which is preventing genuine investors to plan projects.

Setting up textile city in Karachi was visualised by the former Commerce and Industry Minister Abdul Razak Dawood. Later the trade policy in 03-04 proposed to set up two textile cities, one in Karachi and the other at Lahore. A meeting of several federal ministers in December 2003 decided to float a public-private joint stock company to manage the textile city.

A total area of 1,250 acres was proposed for textile city, and the Port Qasim Authority allocated 700 acres and promised to give 550 acres when it sees some development of projects in first phase

In May 2004, a private joint stock company with initial capital of Rs1.10 billion was proposed. The federal government promised Rs500 million while Rs600 million was to come from financial institutions.

Next Monday, the Board of Directors of the Textile City will inform Prime Minister of the problem they faced in acquisition of 700 acres of land from Port Qasim authority. An amount of Rs197 million is said to have been paid as 50 per cent of the land cost after the adjustment of Rs100 million share capital. The PQA was requested for relaxation of 30 months ground rent, demarcation fee which has not been agreed. The Prime Minister will be informed of the encroachments on 100 acres of land which remain unclear despite several requests.

The managers have drawn up a land utilization plan for optimum utilization of land for large, medium and small industrial units. Separate zones have been planned for apparel, denim, knitwear, home textile and towel.

Managers of the Textile City are seeking concessions from the Sindh government in respect of water and electric supply and from the federal government for gas supply. The Textile City and the proposed garment cities in Karachi, Faisalabad and Lahore are planned to be the hub of the integrated textile production and processing activities.