GUJRANWALA, Oct 13: The local business community on Thursday announced that they would provide Rs12 million donation for the earthquake affected areas on the appeal of Punjab Governor Khalid Maqbool and Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi.

An official hand out issued here on Thursday also pledged to donate Rs20 million more besides providing necessary goods to the people stricken by earthquake.

An emergent relief centre has also been set up in the office of DCO Khalid Masood Chaudhry who urged the people to deposit their donations in the centre.

The DCO lauded the people for making maximum efforts in collecting cash and kind for quake affectees by setting up relief camps in various parts of the city and on GT Road.

Meanwhile, GCCI president Akhlaq Ahmad Butt said the utensil manufacturers association and the chamber jointly dispatched some nine truckloads to Muzaffarabad and Mansehra while half a dozen truckloads had already been sent there.

He said that former GCCI president Khwaja Zarrar Kaleem provided medicines and orthopaedic surgical goods worth Rs400,000 to Ayub Medical College, Abbottabad.

While Al-Rai Hospital owner Haji Muhammad Anwer also sent a truckload of medicines along with a team of doctors and nurses to Batgram on Thursday (today), he said.