Textile City in doldrums?

Addressing a news conference in Karachi on Wednesday, the CEO of the Pakistan Textile City (PTC), Zaheer Hussain, said the progress of the project has stalled due to shortage of funds and frequent changes in board members. PTC was launched nearly two years ago as a public-private venture with the objective of establishing a WTO and ISO compliant textile-processing zone over 1,250 acres of land in Port Qasims industrial area.
Another 500 acres of land is also being acquired near Gulshan-e-Hadeed for a workers colony. So far around Rs 1.4 billion have been spent on the acquisition and development of land and approval of the master plan. Also, contracts for development work, including hiring of technical advisor for 250MW power plant and setting up of a combined effluent treatment plant, have either been completed or are at an advanced stage of progress.
But further progress has been halted because the required funds are not forthcoming from the shareholders. The federal government, a major shareholder with up to 45.45 percent share, so far has contributed nothing except for two guarantees of Rs 250 million, each. The National Bank of Pakistan gave Rs 50 million and the Sindh government, holding 9.09 percent equity, has contributed a total of Rs 100 million. The estimated total cost of the project is around Rs 14-15 billion.
At the current rate of progress the cost is going to increase manifold by the time the project is completed. Then there is the problem of some people wanting to be part of the project simply to buy and sell land to make money rather than to set up textile units. It is pertinent to recall here that last August the Sindh government had taken a serious notice of speculators acquiring plots in various industrial zones in the province.
It had announced several measures to ensure that all those who apply for such plots would actually install industrial units on the land allotted to them. The same issue seems to be afflicting PTC as well, which is apparent from the project CEOs comments that diverse interests retard the pace of development and that some board members are keen to keep the cost of land low, while others want to cut expenditure by compromising on quality. In any case, with this kind of attitude, PTC cannot be expected to become a textile zone boasting world-class infrastructure facilities.
It is plain that as a major shareholder the federal government needs to act urgently to ensure that the project moves forward. To make that happen it must do two things. One, of course, would be for it to fulfil its part of the financial obligations. And the other would be to ensure that the PTCs board members are genuine stakeholders. Those who run its affairs or apply for industrial plots must furnish affidavits to the effect that they would set up textile units on these plots, and in the case of failure accept allotment cancellation.