lines through professional management,” he claimed. Earlier, most of the industrial estates in Punjab were managed by a Punjab government department. The infrastructure was in shambles as the bureaucracy depended on funds from the government to maintain them. Bureaucrats were also unable to collect monthly maintenance fee from the established industries. He said due to negligence in maintenance the roads between the industries at Quad-e-Azam Industrial Estate were converted into a canal during monsoon.
The green belt and parks were encroached. He said PIE constituted an independent private sector board. It was authorised to initiate development work, remove encroachments and cancel plots where industry was not established. He said the responsibility of transfer of plots to new owners was also assigned to BOM. Today, he added Quad-e-Azam Industrial Estate was a transformed entity and buzzing with industrial activities.
Nabeel Hashmi, PIE BOD member, said that the number of directors in PIE has been reduced from 23 to 16. He said 2/3rd of the directors are from the private sector that has eliminated the dominance of the bureaucracy. Autonomy of the BOD of the company was notified by the Punjab government. This resulted in acceleration of activities at PIE. He said in 2010 the colonisation in Sundar was only 4 percent.
Today it is 80 percent. He said Sundar was able to add over 400 medium sized industrial units during the period when industrialisation had halted elsewhere in Pakistan, and Punjab was facing both gas and power shortages.
“This shows that the quality of industrial estate is important when investors make their decision,” he said, adding that PIE has now emerged as a reliable brand name in planning and development of industrial estates. “PIE aims to cover each district of the province and develop industrial clusters based on the skill and expertise of the region,” Hashmi said.
Industrial estates in seven districts are at various stages of completion, and the company would soon launch industrial estates in Pind Dadan Khan, Rawalpindi, Gujrat and Bahawalpur from its own resources.
He said 1,500 acres for the Quad-e-Azam Apparel Park have been acquired, and after proper tendering, development work would start this year. He said this estate alone would provide employment to over 200,000 skilled workers, including at least 50 percent women. He said Punjab was well prepared to reap the benefits of China-Pakistan Economic Corridor.