SWABI, June 27: A five-member committee has been constituted to solve day-to-day problems of industrialists and monitor development activities in the Gadoon Amazai Industrial Estate. This was announced by Gadoon industrialists after their meeting with members of the Gadoon Chamber of Commerce and Industry (GCCI) on Monday. GCCI president Fazal Amin told reporters that the committee would monitor all development works and would bar the use of substandard material.
“We want fair and pure work at any cost,” he said. For instance, he said, the Rs10-million Gadoon estate road project would be monitored by the committee and the use of substandard material would be out of the question. According to him, part of the road project is nearing completion and the remaining construction would be ready sometime this year.
The committee will also monitor all development activities, financing, management and monitoring of development projects.
Without the committee’s approval, no development activity would be carried out. “I, along with entrepreneur Anwar Khan, former president of GCCI Liaquat Ahmad Khan, Saeedur Rehman, Manager Sarhad Development Authority Gadoon and chief accountant Israr Ahmad are included in the committee,” he said.
The industrialists recalled that the Gadoon estate was established when seven people laid down their lives in 1987, clashing with law enforcing agencies during the poppy crop-destroying campaign. The main objective of Gadoon Estate, they said, was to provide alternative sources of livelihood to former poppy cultivators.
They said that the leaders of various political parties would jointly fight for the survival of the Gadoon estate, saying they had already contacted some leaders and got a positive response from them.
They claimed that they had been facing great hardship in running their industries due to location disadvantage of the Gadoon estate and the government should provide 25 per cent electricity rebate to save this ill-fated estate.
The infrastructure is already available here, they said and added that there was a dire need for both the federal and NWFP government to come forward and boost the industries at Gadoon estate.
Meanwhile, the district nazim Jehan Khan said that the illegal shifting of machinery would not be allowed from the estate and those involved in such practices would be harshly dealt with.