KARACHI, July 23: A high-level meeting, presided over by the Finance Minister Dr Hafeez Shaikh, on Saturday approved Rs1 billion for laying of water supply line and also sanctioned 9mmcfd gas for initial power generation for the Textile City at Port Qasim.

Talking to newsmen after the meeting, the finance minister said that the Textile City was a world class industrial zone and needed all the support and funding from the federal and provincial governments

The project had been suffering owing to delay in water and gas connections but with the approval of Rs1 billion and 9mmcfd gas, the project would be in a position to provide utilities mostly needed in the first phase of its completion, he added.

Sources privy to the meeting told Dawn that the finance minister was assisted by secretary of finance Dr Waqar Masood Khan and during the meeting, many irritating issues causing delay in the completion of industrial zone were discussed.

The other participants of the meeting were Ali Ahmed, secretary of local government, Sindh, Misbahuddin Fareed, managing director of KWSB, Deep Chund, chief engineer of Pepco, Zaheer A Hussain, CEO of Pakistan Textile City Ltd and Col (retd) Syed Asif Jamal, general manager (technical operations) Pakistan Textile City.

The finance minister said that rupee one billion would be shared equally by federal and Sindh governments for early completion of work on laying of 48 inch dia and 23km long water supply line to the Textile City.

Work on the water pipeline is presently held up owing to shortage of funds because the initial amount of R636 million which was also to be shared equally by federal and provincial government was not fully paid.

However, after the approval of Rs1 billion under revised estimates, Dr Hafeez Shaikh said that the entire cost of laying water pipeline would be met because around Rs300 million had been paid in the past.

However, a thorny issue of huge amount of Rs2.89 billion being demanded by the KWSB towards water connection charges came up for discussion.

Dr Waqar Masood Khan confronted the amount upon which KWSB MD said that the amount had been reduced to Rs400 million, sources said.

Sources said that the Secretary of Finance Dr Waqar Masood Khan questioned that how and on what basis a huge amount of Rs2.89 billion was being initially demanded from the Textile City as connection charges.

Having no answer, the KWSB MD for a while left the meeting along with his assistance Qutub Shaikh.

However, CEO of Textile City Zaheer A Hussain forcefully put up his case and said that since it was a government project and particularly when there was no such precedent in the past, why huge water connection charges were being demanded.

The CEO of Textile City further stated that the KWSB never mentioned such a huge amount of water connection in the PC-I of the project and only demanded Rs636 million towards laying of water pipeline.

Ultimately it was decided that the matter relating to water connection charges would be taken up before the ECNEC.

Upon this, Dr Hafeez Shaikh, said any genuine payment, however, would be paid. Sources said for sorting out gas issues, the finance minister on the spot made a conference call to Dr Asim Hussain, Minister for Petroleum and National Resources and Managing Director of Sui Southern Gas Company Azeem Siddiqui.

As a result of this, it was transpired that the SSGC would provide 9mmcfd to the Textile City which would be sufficient for initial power generation and the balance would be given later on.

Talking to media, CEO of Textile City said that country’s first state-of-the-art industrial zone would be providing all sorts of utilities under one roof including power, gas, textile testing lab, affluent treatment plant, steam required by the textile industry, etc.

He further disclosed that sale of industrial plots of the zone has been initiated and there was a good response from local business community. Zaheer Hussain said that Japanese and Chinese entrepreneurs have also shown keen interest.