Punjab Chief Minister, Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi here on Wednesday said that Punjab government was utilising all available resources for providing relief and assistance to rain and flood-affected people of Balochistan.
He said that relief goods including medicines and food items would soon be sent from Faisalabad through a special C-130 plane. He urged industrialists and philanthropists to donate generously for their calamity-stricken brethren of Balochistan so that they could be provided maximum assistance at this critical hour.
He said that the provincial government was speedily implementing the project to set up industrial estates in Faisalabad, Lahore, Multan, Sialkot and other cities.
After establishment of Faisalabad Value Added City, the largest industrial estate of the country - M-3 Industrial Estate - was being set up over an area of 4,000 acres of land where investment of about 10 billion dollars was expected in different industries, resulting in generation of four million job opportunities.
He was talking to a delegation of prominent industrialists hailing from Faisalabad at Chief Minister's Secretariat here on Wednesday.
The delegation included Chairman Faisalabad Industrial Development and Management Company Mian Muhammad Latif, Chairman AP'I'MA Regional Mian Aftab Ahmad, President Faisalabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry, Muhammad Ayub Sabir, Chairman Pakistan Red Crescent Society Mian Muhammad Hanif, Mian Idrees of Sitara Group, Director E-Mart Chaudhry Muhammad Naeem, Nazim Shehzad of Iftikhar Textiles Mills, Mian Aftab of Al-Hilal, Sh. Waqas Ali of Best Export, Khalid Pervez Sheikh of Yarn market, industrialists Azhar Majeed and others.
Elahi said that in addition to establishment of three industrial estates over 9,000 acres of land at different places on Sialkot-Lahore Motorway, three universities of engineering, science and technology were being set up with the co-operation of Sweden and Germany.
He said that special attention was being paid to vocational education and training in the province so that youth could avail large scale of job opportunities to be created as a result of establishment of new industries.
He said that under Chief Minister's Big City Development Package, different development projects including Ring Road, Canal Road, Millat Road, Sargodha Road, sewerage, sanitation and other schemes were being implemented in Faisalabad at a cost of Rs 11 billion.
He said that infrastructure and soft-term loans would be provided for the revival of textile, processing, chemical and other industries in Faisalabad. He said that after revival, these industries would be shifted from the city, which would help overcome environmental pollution.
The Chief Minister said that state-of-the-art infrastructure, electricity, gas and other facilities had been provided in M-3 Industrial City, which would provide an opportunity to the industrialists to shift the industries from the city. Setting up of an affluent plant in Faisalabad was also being considered, he said. The delegation thanked the Chief Minister for providing grant for the construction of Faisalabad Chambers of Commerce and Industry building.