Delay in allotting land for industrial zone criticised

The business community has complained of slow pace of anti-encroachment drive in three SITE areas in Hyderabad and Jamshoro and inordinate delay in allotting 300 acres of land for a new industrial zone in Hyderabad.

At a meeting chaired by the Hyderabad Divisional Commissioner, Syed Khalid Hyder Shah, took up the issue of procrastination in the allotment of land for a graveyard along Hyderabad-Tando Muhammad Khan road and of the drainage woes on the Autobahn road.

Hyderabad Chamber of Small Traders and Small Industries (HCSTSI) President, Farooq Shekhani, complained that despite the categorical directions of the provincial minister, drive against encroachment in Hyderabad, Kotri and Nooriabad SITE areas has been 'quite slow'.

He recalled that 300 acres of land was allotted for establishing a new industrial zone in Hyderabad in 2010. However, the government has not even done the demarcation on the land, which is supposed to be followed by other rigorous processes of allotment of plots and infrastructure development in that industrial zone.

An executive engineer of Sindh Local Government Department, Mohammad Ali Soomro, assured the meeting that the campaign to remove encroachment in the three site zones will be expedited.

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According to him, over the past 13 years the land which was reserved for the new industrial zone in the district has been encroached.

He, however, could not explain that why the demarcation was not done during the last 13 years and why the activities of the squatters were not stopped on the land.

Meanwhile, the commissioner briefed the meeting that 22 acres of land in Ganjo Takkar is being allotted for the graveyard.

He asked the district administration to initiate process of demarcation of land so that Hyderabad Municipal Corporation (HMC) can start the development work.

The graveyard in the Ganjo Takkar mountain range along Hyderabad-Tando Muhammad Khan road was approved back in 1995 by former Sindh chief minister late Syed Abdullah Shah.

However, the bureaucratic red tape has not just thwarted the development of a graveyard, in a city where space for burying the dead is rapidly shrinking, the very initial work of demarcation has also not been done.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 29^th, 2023.