Federal Minister for Industries and Production, Mian Manzoor Ahmed Wattoo said on Thursday that the First Agro-based Industrial Park would be established in Okara district. The cost of the project will be Rs 500 million, he said adding that initially the park would be established on area of 100 acres and later extended to 200 acres of land during later phases.
As recommended by National Industrial Parks Development Management Company the park would be set up after thoroughly surveying the three proposed sites including Mian Chounoo, Diska and Okara districts. Wattoo was speaking at the briefing meeting of the National Industrial Parks Development and Management Company (NIPS).
He said Okara has the largest storage capacity in Asia and is a fairly large district in terms of population. All required and necessary infrastructures is available in this district including power facility, which is an old power plant and already working at Renala Khurd tehsil, a growing city closed to Okara. This tehsil is mainly known for a famous products company Mitchell's and its farms while Pakistan military dairy farms are also situated in this area.
The still functional Ganga Hydroelectric Station, present in this area, would be upgraded in future to meet the requirement of proposed Agro base Industrial Park. Among others, the meeting was attended by representatives of Nips, Smeda, EDB and Department of Industries Punjab besides Federal Secretary Ministry of Industry, Shahab Khawaja.