Senate Chairman Muhammadmian Soomro has called upon the business community to interact with farmers and chambers of other provinces in order to supplement efforts being made by the government to create a national consensus on building more water reservoirs to ensure provision of cheaper electricity and abundant water for agriculture.
He was speaking at the Lahore Chamber of Commerce & Industry (LCCI) here on Thursday. A number of LCCI members stressed need of building more dams and water reservoirs, provision of cheaper electricity to the industry to make it cost effective and water to agriculture.
Chairman Senate said Chamber should meet their counterparts in other province and convince them of their suggestion that water lining and water-courses lining was right but if there would be no water, how these steps would be beneficial. He said they should be convinced that their share and rights would be protected and government was also trying hard in that regard.
He also threw light on the government endeavours on producing electricity through other resources such as the use of coal and gas.
He said people should be convinced some natural locations were made for building big dams.
To another question, he admitted unemployment was the biggest challenge and suggested it could be solved with the co-operation of businessmen and industrial sector, he said adding that the government was trying to overcome that problem through skill development, technical education and creating opportunities for self-employment too.
He agreed with the idea of discouraging investment in plots and said it should be beneficial if diverted to construction as it would not only create job opportunities but also help overcoming the shortage of housing units.
Muhammadmian Soomro said the government was keen to interact with businessmen and to bring down the cost of doing business.
He assured them he would take all the proposals submitted to him by different LCCI members regarding setting up of women village, promotion of co-operative sector in agriculture, housing and others to the quarters concerned.
Earlier, the LCCI Chief, Mian Misbah-ur-Rehman, said construction of major hydroelectric projects was need of the hour to meet WTO and SAFTA challenges. He said a national consensus should be evolved as early as possible to start work on big dams which ultimately would cut the input cost making it feasible for Pakistani businessmen to enter world markets.
The LCCI SVP Sohail Lashari and Vice-President Sheikh Muhammad Arshad also spoke on this occasion.