Whether due to technical hindrance or lack of political will, the government has finally winded up the important project of “Textile City” in Karachi after spending at least Rs 3 billion on the mega project initiated 13 years ago.
However, after strong objection by Public Accounts Committee (PAC), which expressed serious anger over rolling back of Textile City Project during a meeting this month, Senate Standing Committee on Textile has also decided to visit Karachi and inspect the matter to know if the important project could be revived.
Chairman of the standing committee, Senator Mohsin Aziz said told Pakistan Today that members of the committee would visit Karachi next week and see ground realities and reasons behind closure of the mega project even after investing huge amount during the past 13 years.
“It seems the government has shelved the project without taking possibilities of reviving the project into consideration,” he said adding that responsibility should be fixed for loss of the huge money of taxpayers on the project.
Earlier this month PAC showing its serious anger over the government’s decision of rolling back the project had asked the officials of Ministry of Textile Industry to explain the reasons of the decision of winding up of Textile City in Karachi. The PAC meeting was held at the Parliament House under the chairmanship of Leader of the Opposition in the National Assembly Syed Khursheed Shah.
The meeting was informed by textile secretary that the government has rolled back the Textile City Project designed in 2004 in Karachi owing to gas shortage and other energy related issues. The secretary stated that the Textile City was planned to compete in the global market to comply with standards of the World Trade Organisation but due to power shortage and gas supply issues. The government has so far spent Rs 3 billion on the project, spread over 2,500 acres of land.
The project was aimed to provide world-class facilities to the Textile Industry so that it could comply with standards of the World Trade Organisation, but after 13 years, not a single industrial plot could be sold as the development work remained extremely slow, the committee was told.
According to sources, the present government, which does not hesitate to launch transport or road related project worth billions of rupees, was little interested to go on such mega project initiated by previous governments.
Interestingly the mega project was winded up at a time when China Pakistan Economic Corridor is under construction and foreign investors are preparing to invest in the country.
The Economic Coordination Committee (ECC) of the Cabinet has approved winding up of Pakistan Textile City Limited (PTC) after clearance of the company’s liabilities and transfer of its land to the Port Qasim Authority (PQA) last month.
The government, following the decision of ECC was considering selling 200 acres of land of Textile City to K-Electric to set up a coal-fired power plant.
It may recall that the PTC was established in May 2004 as part of export processing zone in Karachi, Lahore and Faisalabad. Later following a decision of Cabinet Division in July 19, 2013 it was established as establish special textile export processing zones. The major shareholders of Textile city were the federal government (56 per cent shares) and Sindh government (16pc shares).
