April 26, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1429

KARACHI, April 25: The infrastructure in the Landhi industrial area is in a miserable state, and particularly the road network is not motorable due to heavy excavations carried out over the last two years for laying sewerage and water lines.

One side of Mehran Highway from Karachi Export Processing Zone to Dawood Chowrangi and Shahrah-i-Landhi from Yunus Textile to Dawood Chowrangi has not been motorable for mare than one year, while the road linking the National Highway to Hospital roundabout has been damaged completely.

Landhi Association of Trade and Industry Chairman Riyaz Chinoy told Dawn that all the five routes into the Landhi industrial area had been dug up causing extensive problem for transport of goods to/from the industrial area and the KEPZ.

He said due to frequent incidents of containers falling from trawlers owing to big ditches on roads shipments got delayed with a potential risk to human life.

He said that his association had been striving for the improvement of roads and despite repeated appeals to the authorities concerned no positive response was forthcoming.

Landhi area comprises 30-40 big industrial units, which are the major exporters of textile, and as many as 200,000 people are employed there.