The meeting reviewed the draft of the relief package announced by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani for the revival of industrial and trade activities in the province. The province, they said, had been divided into three categories. The first category comprises most affected areas, including Fata, Pata and settled area districts of Hangu, Bannu, Tank, Kohat and Chitral, followed by the moderately affected districts of Charsadda, Peshawar, D.I. Khan, Batagram, Lakki Marwat, Swabi and Mardan. The third category is identified as lesser-affected areas, which included districts Nowshera, Haripur, Abbottabad, Mansehra and Kohistan.
The meeting said that though district Nowshera was part of Peshawar division and despite severely affected during the militancy had been ignored and included in the lesser-affected areas. This was a sheer injustice to both the business community as well as the people of the district, they added.
The employers association, comprising top industrialists of not only the district, but also of the province, said that the district had suffered a lot due to militancy and two suicide blasts, beside various operations against militants, had been carried out in the districts.
Furthermore, they said that the industrialists and people of the districts had extended full co-operation to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Malakand division and tribal area. The largest IDPs camp, they said, was still present in Jalozai, district Nowshera.
They said that while despite bordering districts were included in the category of moderately affected districts of Peshawar, the districts of Charsadda, Mardan and Swabi, District Nowshera had been excluded from the category. They said that the district had capital intensive units like Pakistan Tobacco Company (PTC), Associated Industries, two cement manufacturing units and first and largest life saving drugs manufacturing unit Ferozsons Laboratories and large investment has been made in Risalpur Industrial Estate. But due to reasons known to the quarters concern, it was not included in the second category.
In support of their demand, they said that their business had been affected by 80 to 90 percent in the war on terror. "The market of our products is southern districts of NWFP, which had been badly affected in the militancy and resulting in 90 percent decline in our business," Senior Director of Operations, Associated Industries, Fazle Wadood Khan, told the meeting, adding that the incentives given to the industries located a few meters from our industries and businesses would adversely affect their capacity to compete with such industries and businesses.
The participants of the meeting decided to launch a full-pledged campaign for the inclusion of the district in the most affected or at least in moderately affected districts of the province.
In this connection, the meeting also decided to write formal letters to Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani, Chief Minister Ameer Haider Khan Hoti and Federal Finance Minister Shaukat Tarin to pay attention towards the injustice meted out to their district and inclusion of their district in the most affected or moderately affected categories.
The meeting also decided to contact political leaders and particularly the members of Senate, National Assembly and Provincial Assembly and provincial minister to seek their support in the struggle for the rights of their district.
The meeting was attended by Fazle Wadood Khan, Fasihul Haq Khwaja, Rafique Azfar, Mohammad Nouman, Sheikh Nadeem Naeem, Mukhtar Ahmad, Zahid Iqbal, Aftab Ahmad, Faheem Ahmad, Mohammad Ashfaq Paracha, President of Nowshera Industrial Estate Sheikh Nadeem Naeem and Chairman of All Pakistan Marble Association (Northern Region) Mohammad Hanif and other industrialists and office-bearers of the employers association.