KARACHI: The Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) on Tuesday demanded a special package for the uplift of the city at the earliest and called for improved law and order situation on a war footing basis.

The chamber also demanded that the federal government must set up a special technology park in Karachi to capitalise on the IT sector boom.

In a statement, KCCI President Muhammad Idrees slammed the federal government for ignoring Karachi. “The city continues to suffer badly due to dilapidated infrastructure, unavailability of gas, electricity and water followed by rising lawlessness,” he said.

“KCCI has been constantly writing letters to all the federal ministers from time to time so that they could be invited to the chamber for discussing the issues of Karachi and devising a workable plan of action on a war-footing basis. Unfortunately, none of these federal ministers have time for Karachi which has been left alone like an orphan,” the statement read.

The KCCI president appealed to Prime Minister Imran Khan to pay special attention to the port city and issue directives to all federal ministers to take interest in resolving the problems.

“We had requested the federal government in September 2021 to hand over 1,250-acre at Port Qasim to KCCI for establishing a Textile City, but instead of doing so the land was given to the Ministry of Maritime Affairs,” the statement reads.

Mr Idrees feared that this land would be sold at exorbitant rates to irrelevant people.

The KCCI head further said that street crimes were widely being reported from every nook and corner of the city but Federal Interior Minister Sheikh Rasheed has never bothered to visit Karachi.

“Karachi city’s infrastructure has sharply deteriorated to such an extent that many of the roads, particularly those in the industrial zones, do not offer a smooth ride,” he added.

“The city, despite contributing more than 65 per cent revenue to the national exchequer, 95pc to the provincial kitty and 54pc in terms of exports, has remained deprived of basic facilities. All 14 MNAs of the PTI government — who have been elected from Karachi — are also not paying any attention to the issues suffered by the inhabitants of this city,” the KCCI statement read.

“Recently, the Large Taxpayers Office Karachi surpassed the tax-collection milestone of Rs1 trillion in just eight months of the current fiscal year but this city is not even receiving 10pc of what it has been constantly contributing since so many years.

Published in Dawn, March 9th, 2022