The Port Qasim Authority (PQA) has enhanced the rate of Peripheral Development Charges (PDC) by 100 percent, or Rs 2 million per acre, for all categories of allotment lands in its industrial estate, except the area for edible oil and molasses.
The industrialists, however, have rejected the move as "unreasonable", saying that it would render a fresh setback to the low-paced industrialisation process at Port Qasim. Further, PQA has also revised/seized the miscellaneous charges of its Land Allotment Policy 2002 Modified 2005, including transfer fee, non-utilisation fee (NUF), fee for permission to mortgage (FPM), change in trade, subdivision or bifurcation fee, amalgamation fee and survey/demarcation fee, to be applicable in its industrial zones.
According to sources, the PQA Board, through passing a resolution in its 104th meeting on November 3, 2008, had approved the recommendations of Planning and Development Division (P&DD), proposing per acre PDC in PQA industrial zones to be raised by 100 percent from Rs 2 million to Rs 4 million.
A PQA official said the hike in PDC had become imperative for the Authority, which after undertaking a costly infrastructure development in its industrial zones, like the construction of roads, provision of potable water, sewerage lines and storm water drainage system, was breathing hard under a high cost of Rs 3.8 million per acre PDC.
"The cost of PDC had increased manifold... almost by Rs 3.8 million per acre due to general inflation as now we have provided all basic facilities in the industrial zones," he added.
Naeem Ilyas Khanani, Patron In-Chief of Port Qasim Association for Trade and Industry (PQATI), however, does not buy the argument and demands PQA to reverse the increase, which, he believes, would discourage the new investors, besides the exiting ones. "This is not the right move... we have registered a formal protest to them (PQA) and would also take up the issue with PQA chairman during our regular monthly meeting with him next week," the industrialist resolved.
Khanani also negated the PQA official''s claim that basic facilities had been provided in the industrial zones, particularly the Eastern zone, saying that these might have been provided "partially", but not completely.
"Out of 4000-acre Eastern Zone they would have provided the claimed facilities in 500 acres only, this is not meaningful," he maintained.
Sources said that the PQA, whose economy faced a serious setback during 2008-09 after witnessing operational deficit of at least Rs 580 million after more than a decade, had also revised/fixed miscellaneous charges, like transfer fee, NUF, FPM etc, which were proportionate to PDC by 15 percent, and had, therefore, witnessed an astronomical increase after the PDC went up by 100 percent.
"It was to facilitate the (global) recession-hit investors," commented the official. The Board, in its 107th meeting on 11th of March 2009, through passing a resolution (No 164) permitted PQA to increase its transfer fee, which according to sources is main revenue generator of the Authority, from Rs 100,000 to Rs 300,000 per acre "in view of the world-wide recession".
The NUF, which previously amounted to 15 percent of total PDC and is applied variably in case of an allotee''s failure to start developing the allotted piece of land within a four-year deadline. Henceforth, PQA would charge Rs 100,000 for one year, Rs 200,000 for two years, Rs 400,000 for three years and would finally cancel the allotment after four years of non-development of the site.
Under the new changes the Board increased FPM from Rs 15,000 to Rs 30,000 per financial institution/bank, fixed the rate for Change in Trade, once amounting to over Rs 80,000, at Rs 42,087 per acre, reduced the sub-division/bifurcation fee from Rs 200,000 to Rs 100,000 per acre, fixed the amalgamation fee at Rs 300,000 per acre and seized the per acre survey/demarcation fee at Rs 10,000, said the sources.