Mian Rashid Asghar.
FAISALABAD: The cancellation of 115 Industrial plots in M3 Industrial Estate is the high handedness of the Faisalabad Industrial Estate Development & Management Company (FIEDMC) as this extreme action has been taken without providing electricity, gas, and other basic infrastructure.
The Board of Directors (BOD) of the FIEDMC has constituted a Grievances Redressed Committee (GRC) with Chairman Zafar Iqbal Sarwar as its head to review the massive complaints and give relief in the genuine cases. Expressing concerns over this abnormal situation, Mr. Atif Munir Sheikh, President of the Faisalabad Chamber of Commerce & Industry (FCCI) said that this hasty and unwise action has further delayed Rs. 15 Billion projects. “In these cases boundary wall has been completed and now investors were undertaking the construction work”, he said and criticizes the bureaucratic attitude of Manzar Javed, Chief Executive Officer of the FIEDMC, and said that such action would further delay the colonization of various industrial estates being developed by the FIEDMC.
He said that many investors had also placed orders for the purchase of machinery while in some cases it was also landed at the seaports but the cancellation of plots has created a new problem for them instead of facilitating them to gear up construction work and make their units functional. Mr. Atif Munir, lamented that in some areas even access roads are not available and some Chinese investors are now forced to construct roads from their own resources. He welcomed the GDC and hoped that proper relief must be given to the allottees and this matter should not be left at the mercy of bureaucracy. He said that the FIEDMC must review these cases and try to facilitate investors instead of discouraging them.
He said that new investment in industrial estates would not only help the government to get maximum taxes but it would also create new job opportunities. Mr. Sheikh admitted that the Chairman FIEDMC was trying his optimum best to provide maximum facilities to the investors but he was discouraged through the bureaucratic attitude. “Colonization-related issues may not be delayed due to the conflict of the management,” he said and hoped that GDC would play a proactive role and restore the canceled plots by reviewing the ground realities. He warned that investors may contact courts if their genuine demands were not fulfilled. “This situation will inflict a severe blow to the much needed industrialization,” he said and added that it would also discourage new investors.
President FCCI said that he would take up this issue in the next BOD meeting if the genuine complaints of the allottees were not redressed on an emergency basis.
