‘Govt mulls import of conditioned cars’

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Industries Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani has said that the government is considering to allow import of reconditioned cars to ensure their availability in the market on affordable prices.Answering questions in the National Assembly during question hour on Wednesday, he said the issue will be taken up in the meeting of the ECC for final decision. He said small cars in Pakistani market are somehow expensive and it is government’s endeavor to bring down its prices therefore it is considering allowing import of reconditioned cars.To a question, he said two fertilizer plants had been set up in the country during the last two years from which one has become operational at Sadiqabad in Punjab while the other at Dherki in Sindh will go into production by December this year.  These plants, he said will produce over 2.9 million tons fertilizer of various varieties. He said the government provided 106 billion rupees subsidy on urea import during the last five years.Minister for Special Initiatives Lal Muhammad Khan informed the House that the federal government had launched a mega project to install 6,626 water filtration plants throughout the country.  He said unfortunately all the provincial governments were not taking the project seriously and no significant progress had been made so far. He suggested to implement this project through MNAs to benefit the people.Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani to a question informed the National Assembly that various measures had being taken to reduce sugar prices. He said these measures include withdrawing 25 percent import duty on raw sugar besides importing more sugar and provision of sugar at the rate of 55 rupees per kilogram at Utility Stores.Minister for Textiles Rana Muhammad Farooq Saeed informed the House that the Ministry was in the process to launch a skill development programme for textile industry under which 500,000 workers would be trained in various trades during the next five years – Dailmailnews