KARACHI, March 18: The Sindh government has released Rs one billion for development of infrastructure in four industrial estates of Karachi, namely Korangi, Landhi, F B Area and North Karachi.

Each industrial estate will get Rs250million to start development of infrastructure under a public-private partnership arrangement initiated in 2006.

A committee, comprising secretaries of industries, finance, local government and representative of industrialists, will supervise the development work.

Industries Additional Secretary Murli Manohar told Dawn on Tuesday that the federal government would shortly pay its share of Rs one billion, and a request had already been made by the Sindh government.

The funds have been released under a Rs1,000 million Development Programme announced by President Pervez Musharraf in 2005 for Karachi.

He said that the industrial estates already have basic infrastructure, like water, electricity, communications and sewerage, and they would spend new funds on upgrading these facilities.

Under the programme, four companies namely, Korangi Industrial Estate Company (Kite); Landhi Industrial Estate Company (Lite), Federal B Area Industrial Estate Company (Fite), and North Karachi Industrial Estate Company (Nkite) were established to undertake the development work in their respective areas.

Meanwhile, Rehan Zeeshan of Fite told Dawn that the main focus of development work in his area would be on strengthening of security in the estate, especially after incidents of violence witnessed following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

He said that development funds would be utilised in establishing a fire brigade service, a boundary wall around the estate to stop penetration of unlawful elements through the riverine passage, street-lights and installation of cameras for security purpose.

Rehan further stated that another main project would be to build roads in the estate and to strengthen security to attract foreign buyers to visit factories for placing orders.

He said that the government had also pledged funds for building an effluent treatment plant for the area, which would make the waste water reusable by the industries.

The city government has helped the estate in constructing stormwater drains, and laying sewerage and water lines.

Asked about creating conditions mandated under the WTO, especially restriction on use of child labour, secured and hygienic work environment for the labour, etc., he said that it was responsibility of the individual factories to make their units WTO compliant.

Under the procedure, all the four companies would submit proposals for development of infrastructure in the form of PC-1 to the committee, which would approve schemes after proper scrutiny.

Most of these industrial estates suffer from problems of poor road conditions, water and power shortage, insufficient security arrangements, etc.

The textile sector, which has long been demanding incentives from the government to make their products competitive in the export market, would be benefited by the lavish government grant of Rs2 billion, shared equally by the federal government and the Sindh government.