Four illegal housing schemes sealed in Faisalabad

FAISALABAD: Under the directions of FDA Director General Suhail Khawaja, the FDA teams sealed four unapproved housing schemes.

The housing schemes, which have been sealed, are Rehman Garden, Maqbool Town, Jalal Town and Bholaywal Town. They are being established at Chak 100/JB, Chak 61/JB, Chak 217/JB and Chak 9/JB. The FDA teams have also demolished the illegal constructions in these housing schemes. The management of unapproved housing schemes has been asked to get the approval for town planning after fulfilling all legal requirements. The FDA DG said that cases would also be got registered against the owners of the illegal housing schemes.

economic activities: Faisalabad Women Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FWCCI) president Miss Qurratul Ain Thursday said efforts are underway to involve women in productive economic activities to make country a progressive and prosperous one. Addressing a function to interact with the media, Qurratul Ain said female entrepreneurs are also contributing their humble role in the overall development of Faisalabad and Pakistan but a major chunk of this sector is still untapped and marginalized. She said the FWCCI has launched a vigorous membership campaign to attract women already working at domestic or small scale. The FWCCI president said there are some social and family constraints which are discouraging women to actively or independently start their own businesses and in this connection the FWCCI is already organising awareness and guidance training session in order to sensitize them.

She said she has chalked out a progressive strategy to involve the newly passed out female students of local universities and colleges in the productive economic activities. “In this connection, FWCCI will try to provide the facility of incubation centres where females could give practical shape to their unique and innovative ideas”, she maintained. She said State Bank of Pakistan has already offered a number of income generating schemes for female entrepreneurs while startups will also be encouraged to avail from these schemes and “Kamyab Jawan” Program. She said women could also be encouraged to enter into the tax net by availing from the facilities offered by FBR. “Under this scheme females have been given special privileges to file returns with zero return for three consecutive years”, she added. Ms Qurratul Ain said a MoU would also be inked with educational institutions and under this programme passed out students would be offered short term entrepreneurship courses enabling them to start them own businesses instead of running after jobs.

EXHIBITION: Industrialists of Faisalabad will fully participate in the 2nd Suppliers and Vendors Defence Exhibitions (SAVDEX) to play their active role in order to further strengthen the defence industry in addition to bridging the gap between industrial sector and Defence Export Promotion Organisation (DEPO), said FCC) president Rana Sikandar Azam. He was talking to a delegation of the LCCI that met him to brief about the SAVDEX to be organised in Lahore International Expo Centre from February 27-29. Rana Sikandar Azam appreciated the holding of SAVDEX and said that it was their national obligation to participate in such exhibitions in order to play their due role in making the national defence impregnable. He said that he would convene a meeting of the FCCI Standing Committee on Exhibitions and convince its members to actively participate in SAVDEX. "We will also make efforts to provide sponsors for this mega event", he assured.

Earlier, Sheikh Muhammad Ibrahim of the LCCI briefed about the salient features of the exhibition and told that the first two days were exclusively reserved for the officials of armed forces while the third would be for the public so that stallholders could sell their products. He said that the event would bridge the gap between the vendors and DEPO in order to make Pakistan self reliant in defence production.

Regarding SAVDEX, he said that last year 67 companies had participated in it and it was very encouraging that all these companies had rebooked their stalls for the upcoming event. He said that special pavilion would be allocated for different chambers at subsidised rates.