RAHIM YAR KHAN: The Rahim Yar Khan Industrial Estate (RYKIE) has not been completed despite a delay of five years.

Even the most suitable location on the national highway and nearest to the main railway track, and for good measure existing in the hometown of Punjab Industries Minister Chaudhry Shafiq, it could not attract the industrialists.

Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif had in 2011 inaugurated the Rs2 billion project at Chak 5-NP on the national highway near Sadiqabad for the establishment of an industrial zone on 456 acres in southern Punjab.

Work on roads, water supply, sewerage and electricity had been started under the supervision of the Punjab Industrial Estate Development and Management Company (PIEDMC) in April 2012. The project was to be completed in two years, but it is still incomplete.

A total 328 plots of three categories of half acre, one acre and two acres were made available at Rs6.5 million per acre on the first come first serve basis.

Only roads, electricity poles, a water tank, sewerage and some other civil works have so far been completed in the first phase of the project.

Only 95 plots have been sold because of a slow pace of work while only one factory of polythene is established in the RYKIE. The work on the second phase has still not been started.

The PIEDMC has to establish a police check-post, a general hospital, a community centre, a vocational training centre, two mosques, an expo centre, a hotel and parks in the estate, but all such facilities are still only on papers.

Even a separate grid station for electric supply and the provision of gas facility seem to be a distant dream.

The industrialists in the district had a plan to connect the RYKIE with the main railway track at the Adam Sahaba railway station by converting the kutcha Sadiqabad Road into a dual carriageway, but to no avail.

If this project completes in the near future, it will also benefit the CPEC as it is quite close to Rahim Yar Khan’s Shaikh Zayed International Airport.

A spokesperson for PIEDMC said the PIE public relations officer would talk on the matter, but he did not contact.

Published in Dawn, April 23rd, 2016