ACCORDING to a tender published in your paper ((Oct 19), the Pakistan Central Cotton Committee (PCCC) is once again shifting from KDA Scheme No.24 to another location.

It is also rumoured that the PCCC’s fibre technology section is being shifted to Multan, its agricultural research section to Lahore, its secretariat to Islamabad while its cotton marketing research centre will remain right here in Karachi in the building for which the tender is being called for.

Since its inception, the PCCC has been working with all research facilities under one roof to the satisfaction of all its stakeholders.

If the PCCC is subdivided and works at four different places, it will increase its expenditure at a time when the government aims at economising the expenditure of all institutions. Moreover, the working of the PCCC will be negated if it is spread out into four different places.

How is the PCCC going to prove beneficial if part of it works from Lahore, part from Islamabad, part from Multan and the remaining from Karachi?

These are some points that need to be reconsidered by the authorities concerned.

Karachi was selected by pioneering agricultural scientists like Mian Mohammad Afzal, Dr Nazir Ahmed, A.A. A. Ansari and many others who are no more today.

The news that the PCCC is going to be relocated to four different places has caused tension among the staff and dozens of PCCC pensioners.

Moreover, the in-service employees are said to be knocking the doors of courts in this regard.

The authorities concerned are requested to take the PCCC ahead and not be flattered by their whims which are likely to do more harm to the PCCC than any good.

The government is said to have received about Rs580 million for leaving its present premises on M.T. Khan Road, Karachi. Why is the money not being used to give the PCCC a building of its own and allowed to work as usual under one roof?

I hope that the authorities concerned will look into all these issues seriously rather than making any hasty decisions which it is bound to regret later.

M. SHAFIQUE AHMED Karachi