September 06, 2006	Wednesday	Sha'aban 12, 1427

PESHAWAR, Sep 5: The newly set up Pakistan Stone Development Company (PSDC) will shortly invite applications from the private firms interested to convert their marble mines into model quarries, sources said on Tuesday.

The PSDC, a public-private venture established in June last with an authorised capital of Rs300 million will establish ten model quarries in the marble and granite rich parts of the country in line with the newly formulated Pakistan marble and granite sector development plan.

Out of the total authorised capital the PIDC has put a sum of Rs66 million at the disposal of the PSDC, which will have majority members on its 12-member board of directors from the private sector.

The Peshawar-based officials of the Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda), which will collect applications from the private sector, said that out of the ten model quarries being set up three each would be in Balochistan and NWFP, one each in the Northern Areas and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (Fata) and two in Sindh.

Ehsanullah Khan, a local businessman and chairman of the board of directors of PSDC, told Dawn that the company would select 10 mines for their conversion into model quarries within six months following which funds would be arranged to establish the model mines, which would become functional in May next year.

The establishment of model quarries, he added, would facilitate the private sector to maintain their mines on the same pattern and the application of modern extraction techniques would help bring down the extraction losses, which presently stood as high as 73 per cent of the total amount of marble extracted every year in the country.

"The mechanised mining practices, which the PSDC is going to introduce with the establishment of the model quarries, would ensure export of 100 per cent of the extracted stones," said Mr Khan, who himself is a miner.

In line with President Musharraf directives the federal government would provide Rs1.98 billion for implementing the marble and granite sector development plan, whereas a soft loan of Rs2 billion would be arranged for the PSDC to execute the plan.

The plan envisages setting up five special zones to be called as marble

cities in the marble rich areas of the country. The zones would be provided with warehouses, machinery pools and training centres.

The plan aims at producing 200,000 skilled workforce and 2,000 trained quarry masters by 2015 to help the private sector overcome problems of shortage of trained labour and the non-availability of trained quarry master in the country.

The officials said that the plan envisages increasing the country's foreign exchange earnings through marble exports from the current $23 million to $2.44 billion by 2015.

According to Mr Khan, the federal government is in touch with the NWFP government for providing 180 acres of land owned by the Sarhad Development Authority in Nowshera district for the establishment of the first of the five marble cities.

Infrastructure in these cities would be developed by the PSDC following which plots for the establishment of warehouses and marble units would be allotted to the interested parties.

The management of the special marble zones, he added, would be taken care by the private sector though the PSDC, which would carryout its activities on no-profit-no-loss basis for the first three years.