HYDERABAD: Sindh Governor Kamran Khan Tessori has assured the city’s business community and traders of his best efforts for compensation against the losses they suffered due to the July 14 rainfall and flooding.
He was speaking at a gathering of business community’s leaders and answering journalists’ questions in a local hotel on Saturday. He earlier visited different markets, especially the City Cloth Market, where several hundred traders had suffered heavy losses due to the flooding.
The governor, who was accompanied by several Muttahida Qaumi Movement-Pakistan (MQM-P) lawmakers and other leaders, said that “MQM would not leave traders in the lurch in these circumstances; it’s standing with the business community”.
He recalled that he had arranged the compensation amount for the bereaved families of Paretabad tragedy through his friends, and remarked that he did not believe in lip-service.
Governor Tessori asked the business community to share “an honest assessment” of their losses with the MQM-P leadership and lawmakers.
Discloses Rs5bn for Hyderabad uplift released by Centre, another same amount is in pipeline
He proposed that two committees should be formed, one by the federal government and the other by the provincial government, with representation of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry. “Either it is laxity or calamity but damage is seen and that’s why I believe that compensation should be given to business community members who suffered losses,” he said.
He said that these committees should assess the damage. “One proposal can be that federal and provincial taxes should be waived for one year and the second may be to seek a special package in this regard,” he said.
He said that world was developing fast but Hyderabad lagged behind. He promised that efforts for the establishment of a general university in the city would continue. He said solutions to people’s fundamental problems must be facilitated.
The governor said that the Hyderabad Electric Supply Company’s performance was bound to improve and he would take up the matter with the federal government. He asked MNA Wasim Hussain to see why a regular chief executive officer (CEO) of Hesco was not being appointed after resumption of the appointment process.
Earlier, a leading business community figure, Adeel Siddiqui, while addressing governor, said that Hyderabad needed expansion of the SITE area. “We are tired of demanding this expansion. We don’t have infrastructure,” he said. Hyderabad doesn’t get its due share in terms of its revenue contribution, he lamented, and said that Hyderabad contributed Rs120bn revenue in terms of taxes.
Kotri Association of Trade and Industry (KATI) chairman Khalil Baloch drew governor’s attention towards denial of gas supply to Kotri’s industrial area despite the fact that Sindh produces 65pc of the country’s total gas. He said PM should be approached to get industrialists some relief.
Acting president of the Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders & Small Industry Idrees Chohan, Mahmood Ali Rajput, and Ziauddin Qureshi raised different issues pertaining to Hesco and implementation of urban rural quota in Sindh.
Centre releases Rs5bn for Hyderabad
Governor Kamran Tessori disclosed that Rs5bn under Hyderabad’s Urban Infrastructure Development Package had been transferred by federal government to the Pakistan Infrastructure Development Company Ltd. (PIDCL). The funds landed just before the closure of FY2024-25 and now contracts would be awarded through e-contracts. In fact, he added, another Rs5bn would be received from federal government to take cumulative cost of this package to Rs10bn, in addition to a similar package of Rs15bn for Karachi.
He said that it was time that federal and provincial governments should jointly offer a helping hand to people to resolve their problems because point scoring by any political side would not be a service to people.
The governor also visited other areas during his visit to the city. MQM-P leader Dr Farooq Sattar, its district organiser Zafar Siddiqui and lawmakers Wasim Hussain, Abdul Aleem Khanzada, Sabir Kaimkhani and Nasir Qureshi accompanied the governor.
The governor said: “I will personally monitor utilisation of these funds and we [MQM-P] will make sure that its impact is strongly pronounced in the city,” he said.
When asked whether there was any condition of seeking NOC from Sindh government, he replied that the federal government had attached no such condition. “There was, however, a lot of debate on utilisation of the funds. But eventually, the funds were transferred to the PIDC,” he said. He stated e-contracts would be awarded and MQM would monitor the expenditures. He expressed the hope that Hyderabad would show progress like Islamabad.
Published in Dawn, July 20th, 2025