167 timber market traders receive interim compensation cheques

Karachi
Around 167 traders whose businesses had been damaged in the recent blaze in Timber Market were given cheques worth Rs100,000 each, as interim compensation, at a ceremony organised at the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industries (KCCI) on Saturday.
The cheques were distributed by Sindh information and local government minister Sharjeel Inam Memon in the presence of KCCI office bearers and other business leaders.
Speaking at the ceremony, Memon said earlier the Sindh government had provided Rs100,000 as interim compensation to each of the 82 dwellers of the Timber Market area whose houses had been damaged.
He said the Sindh government will bear 50 percent expenses of rebuilding the market while the rest would be borne by the federal government for providing complete compensation to the affected traders once the committees concerned have estimated the losses.
Memon said traders and business associations had cooperated with the provincial administration in providing rescue, support and rehabilitation services to the Timber market fire and by uniting they had defeated those politicising the issue. He said the Sindh government and local government department will duly submit its responses in the ongoing proceedings of the suo moto case of water shortage in Karachi being heard in the Supreme Court. However, he said, apex court should also take cognisance of the matter that subordinate courts in the city had granted stay orders for operations of illegal water hydrants in the city.
He said the Sindh government had embarked upon a mission to improve the workings of the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board but the problems of ghost employees of the water utility and issuance of such undue stay orders by courts in favour of illegal hydrants had been hampering the government’s efforts to make its working efficient.
The minister said a total of 130 illegal hydrants had been operating in the city while he had himself supervised the operations to demolish around 90 of them.
He said the situation had later worsened when operators of such illegal hydrants or those operating without the water board’s permission had obtained stay orders from courts against the government’s demolition operation.
He said when the government continued with its demolition operation against illegally-operating hydrants disregarding such stay orders, the its managing director and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation administrator had provoked severe ire of courts and warrants for their arrest were issued.
Talking on the subject of terrorism, Memon said the Sindh and federal governments had been fully cooperating with each other to combat the menacing problem. He said the government had led the efforts by launching a crackdown on criminals in the city a year-and-a-half ago but unfortunately trial courts hadn’t disposed of the large number of cases.