The Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry (KCCI) has appealed to the Sindh government to refrain Karachi Development Authority (KDA) from cancelling the allotment letters of residential plots in Mehran Town where commercial and industrial activities are going on.
In a statement issued on Wednesday, KCCI President Muhammad Idrees termed it purely an anti-business, anti-public and anti-economy move. He said that KDA intends to cancel allotment orders of 1,401 plots where hundreds of industries have been providing jobs to millions of workers for many decades.
“What will be the fate of all these industrial units and millions of workers and their families who earn their bread and butter from these units?” he asked. He said that the poor masses and the business community are already going through the toughest times of their lives due to disaster caused by the Covid-19 pandemic and now the KDA has also stepped in to further aggravate the hardships instead of acting leniently in an extraordinary situation.
He pointed out that Mehran Town, which was announced in 1973, was spread over a huge land of 1,150 acres and it is an area where a large number of small-sized, medium-sized and cottage industries had been established long time ago which are an integral part of the supply chain as these industries, besides catering to local demand, are also providing essential raw materials to many industries all over Karachi.
It must also be kept in mind that the cottage industries are a major source of generating employment particularly for women which was the basic phenomena for establishing these cottage industries in the neighbourhoods such as Mehran Town so that women could easily focus on work as well as their homes. The biggest advantage of setting up cottage industries in residential areas is that they create gender employment which has always been the top priority of the Sindh government, he added.
The president KCCI said, “The decision to cancel allotment orders of all the residential plots by alleging misuse of plots and violation of rules & regulations of the allotment has to be reviewed and immediately withdrawn in the larger interest of the economy and the poor masses.”
He said that it is a matter of grave concern that the decision to cancel allotments has been taken independently without consulting the stakeholders and the affectees which would not only trigger poverty and employment but also lead to anarchy; therefore, the Sindh government should intervene in this serious matter; otherwise, the emerging situation would also impact the Sindh’s economy.
