President of Site Association of Industry (SAI), Saleem Parekh, has demanded of the government to revamp or handover management of Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE) Limited to the Site Association. Addressing a joint press conference with Zubair Motiwala, Younis M Bashir, Jawed Bilwani and other tycoons, he said, around 10 years ago Site Limited was performing its job well and with the passage of time its working had been adversely hit by political interference.
The said bigwigs of the business community suggested three steps to improve SITE Ltd working under which SITE Ltd Managing Director should be appointed at least for three to four years; Property tax collected from SITE industrial area should be spent only in that area; and a right man be appointed for right job.
They said performance of SITE Ltd is not satisfactory with regard to construction and maintenance of roads, water supply and sewerage and providing of other infrastructural services. They demanded that the government should allocate at least Rs 3 billon for infrastructure development of SITE industrial area.
On prevailing condition of infrastructure, gas shortage and its reduced pressure and acute water shortage, they said that the area needs more finances to overcome these issues. The oldest industrial estate of the country namely Site industrial trading estate (SITE) spread over 4000 acres housing more than 3000 industrial units facing great hardship because of decaying infrastructure.
They said that dilapidated roads and streets without lights are helpful to bandits to loot the passerby and vehicles on gun point. They alleged that Site Limited has miserably failed to repair and re-carpet roads and streets which are in poor condition.
They said the Site association spends about Rs 3 million per month on law and order in this industrial estate. Around 143 CCTV cameras were installed by the association. There are 69 security guards to monitor industrial area with 14 motorcycles and two mobiles.
They said that after adopting these measures, around 67% crime reduced in this industrial estate. However, snatching is on rise due to dilapidated roads where vehicles go slow. Parekh stressed the need for development of infrastructure in order to cope up with growing demands of Karachi Industry. He also objected to over-staffing in SITE Ltd and emphasized on the need for rightsizing to make it efficient.
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