HYDERABAD, July 24: The adviser to the Sindh chief minister on excise and taxation, M. A. Jalil, has said the government is determined to eliminating narcotics trade.

Talking to journalists at the excise and taxation office here on Saturday, he warned that no narcotic peddler would be spared.

He said establishment of a drug enforcement cell was also on the anvil to deal with drug traffickers but this might take time.

Answering a question, Mr Jalil said the excise staff did not have necessary wherewithal provided to police and Rangers, which included sophisticated arms and vehicles.

He said the department had even no money to pay to informers and even wireless sets had not been made available to convey messages during encounters with drug barons.

The adviser said despite these constraints, the department was doing well.

He said in due course of time help of international agencies and NGOs would be sought to wipe out the menace of narcotics.

He said a special excise squad of Hyderabad on Friday night arrested two persons, Mukhtiar Ahmad alias Babu Mangrio and Akram Rajput alias Pandit, near the central jail, who had brought heroin and charas from Karachi. He said eight kilograms of heroin and 10 kilograms of charas were recovered from their possession.

INDUSTRIAL ZONE: The Sindh secretary for industries and labour, Nasir Hayat, has said efforts are being made to convert the Nooriabad industrial zone into a model industrial estate.

He was speaking to industrialists of Nooriabad at the Nooriabad Executive Club on Saturday.

He said PC-1 relating to supply of water from the Keenjhar Lake to Nooriabad, which would cost Rs250 million, was under consideration.

The former chairman of the Nooriabad Association of Trade and Industry, Yasin Siddiqui, regretted that PC-1 for providing water supply to Nooriabad had been thrown in the cold storage.

He claimed that Nooriabad would become the biggest industrial zone in the country if the water problem was resolved.

Nooriabad Executive Club president Kanwar Ziaur Rehman demanded that the Nooriabad Social Security Hospital should be upgraded, work on a stadium should be started without delay and a labour colony should be constructed at the industrial estate.

He said the decision to charge half fare from workers travelling from Karachi to Nooriabad and Hyderabad to Nooriabad should be implemented.

On this occasion, the managing director, Site, Hashim Raza Zaidi, announced two tube-wells for the Nooriabad Site.

BISE: The Board of Intermediate and Secondary Education will announce the result of SSC part-II (class-X) annual examination 2004 (science group) on July 26.