KARACHI, Aug 1 The Sindh government has planned Rs899.8 million marble city at Sonda, Thatta district to commercially exploit vast marble deposits in the area.

The PC-1 of the marble city to be stretched on 200 acres has been submitted to the Planning and Development Department for approval.

Secretary Industries Ali Ahmed told Dawn on Saturday that the directive to build a marble city with modern cutting and polishing units was issued by the Sindh chief secretary during his recent visit to Sonda.

The proposed marble city would not only reduce the cost of business, but would also brighten up export prospects due to its close proximity to Port Qasim.

Presently, marble rocks are transported on heavy costs to factories in Karachi from Balochistan and Sonda.

The marble city would house modern processing and polishing units which would add tremendous value to the raw marble for both export and sale to the domestic market.

The PC-1 of the project reveals that hills around Sonda are rich in coal, limestone and marble deposits, but unfortunately no industrial estate was set up in the area with modern units to process the precious stone, which fetches a handsome price in international market.

Presently, regular mining of marble and limestone is carried out by the private sector in the area but due to non-existence of processing and polishing facility on hand the precious stone is carried to other cities and sold at throwaway prices.

Former chairman of Marble Mining and Processing Association Rana Sanaullah expressed reservations over success of the marble city as he said that a marble city set up four years back at Gaddani was still devoid of any industry due to variety of reasons including risk to investment and life of the investors.

Mohammad Arif, vice chairman All Pakistan Marble Association said that unless the stakeholders were taken into confidence no industry could be successful.

He did not agree with the advantages of a factory set up at the raw material site and said that a nearby market was essential to absorb the B quality marble left out from exports.