Catering to Industrial estate units'' needs: Sindh to establish power stations

The Sindh government is planning to establish power stations in industrial estates to cater the needs of industrial establishments, official sources told Business Recorder here on Monday. A proposal in this regard was discussed at the 55th meeting of the Board of Directors, Sindh Small Industries Corporation (SSIC) held recently with Sindh Minister for Commerce and Industries, Rauf Siddiqui, in the chair.
Sources said that the participants gave a suggestion regarding setting up of separate power stations in the industrial estates to run the industries to enhance production of units, which has declined considerably due to electricity breakdowns. Hundreds of labourers are sitting idle due to frequent power breakdowns in the province, they said.
The minister approved the plan and directed that a power-base estate strategy for industrialisation should be prepared, and offers be invited from private sector parties to energise each estate of the Sindh Industrial Estates, they added.
They said that the minister also directed the officials to work out plan regarding establishing power stations with the capacity of 200, 100 and 50 megawatts in the industrial estates immediately so that work could be initiated. He also instructed for reserving adequate area for the power generation stations in the PC-1s of the new developmental schemes of industrial zones, they added.
The participants of the meeting were informed about the progress of small industrial estates (Ext) Hyderabad, small industrial estates in Ghotki and Mithi districts besides upgradation work of the small industrial estates in the province would be completed by December 31, 2009.
Officials were advised to pay required fee to Nadra to take up the matter of balloting through computerisation speedily in Sindh Industrial Estate (Ext) Hyderabad, sources added. They said that price of industrial plots in small industrial estates (Ext) Sukkur was fixed at Rs 430 per sq yard. Applications for allotment of plots would be invited through advertisements in leading newspapers and the officials were directed to complete the allotment process by July 2009, they added.
About transparency in the allotment process, sources said, a committee has been constituted with representative of Sukkur Chamber of Commerce and Industry, Ashraf Baig, as its chairman and the directors (estate and investment) Karachi office and Sukkur regional office as its members.
Among others who attended the meeting were Industries Secretary Ali Ahmed Lund, representative of finance department Imtiaz Hussain Chandio, assistant chief (industries) planning and development department Nawab Pirzado, Manager of Small and Medium Enterprise Development Authority (Smeda) Zeeshan Ahmed, senior vice president, Industrial Development Bank, Sarfaraz Hussain, chairman, Pakistan Small Chamber of Commerce and Industry Bashir Ahmed and Ashraf Baig, representative of Sukkur Chamber of Commerce and Industry.