PESHAWAR: The provincial government will build hostels to overcome accommodation problems of industrial workers, according to an official of the industries department.

He said that the Sarhad Development Authority would establish the facilities at the industrial estates in Peshawar. “The authority will also involve the private sector to run the facilities as a public-private venture,” added the official, who holds important position at SDA.

The decision to set up the accommodation facilities, the official told Dawn, had been taken on the basis of information compiled recently, according to which a large number of labourers working at Peshawar’s industrial units belonged to areas outside the provincial capital.

These workers, said the official, could not afford respectable accommodations and in some instances some of the daily wagers had to sleep on the pavements in the city to spend night.

Under another development plan, the SDA had compiled data of the cottage industry, putting together information of the small entrepreneurs to help them develop linkages to market their products, said the official. He added that the authority also intended to set up a display centre at Islamabad where products produced by small businesses would be displayed and the contact information would be made available to the interested parties.

“This would help expand the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa cottage industry’s outreach as the owner of a home-based business from Chitral, Swat, or Charsadda could be contacted from the information made available at the display centre,” said the official.

He said the authority carried out an extensive exercise to collect details of a large number of home-based businesses from across the province to develop the database in an effort to help the owners of small businesses to develop market linkages.— Bureau