Acting President Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry, Muhammad Ali along with former President-KCCI, A.Q. Khalil and other Members of KCCI, Salim Farooqi, Rafiq Jadoon, Rasheeduddin Rashid, Asif Nisar & Iftikhar Vohra visited the fire incident site of Khauri Garden Market located at M.A. Jinnah Road. Today, a fire incident took place in the Khauri Garden Market where combustible fireworks items were stored.

Acting President-KCCI, Muhammad Ali expressed his grief on the fire incident and demanded that combustible fireworks items must be prohibited for manufacturing and storing in the congested business markets. He said that occasion of Shab-e-Barat was near and manufacturing and storing of fireworks items are increasing which may act as potential threat for big accidents in the congested markets. He urged the Police and law-enforcing agencies for strict surveillance of potentially hazardous and combustible items and restrict them from coming in the market.

He also asserted on the business circles to discourage the manufacturing and storage of combustible items of fireworks in the markets and inform the Police, City District Government and Karachi Chamber of Commerce & Industry about the locations where such items are stored and manufactured so that measures maybe taken for their removal. He also urged the KESC to devise a strategy to improve the poor conditions of electricity meters and cables in the markets which were acting as potential threats for short-circuits.

He also urged the Government to investigate the fire-incident of Khauri Garden and compensate the losses has highly criticized the performance of PEPCO & KESC for their inefficiency to handle the power crisis. Yesterday black-out in Karachi has extremely annoyed the consumers & spread unrest and discontentment. KESC is playing havoc with common-man and business community since its privatization. Upto 24 hours electricity and gas outages have compelled the Export-oriented Industry to the verge of total closure, he added.

He expressed his deep concern on the power crisis and stated that this power crisis chaos would not only compel the exporters to lose their orders but also result in foreign exchange shrinking in millions of dollars. Due to unjustified and unprovoked policies of OGRA and NEPRA the cost of doing business is gone exorbitantly high and as consequence numerous are working under-capacity, many industries are closed-down and several have decided to close.

He said that Mayhem in Trade & Commerce Sector will not only decline the revenue for the government but will also lead massive to unemployment. The outcome of escalating problems of Trade & Industry would be in the form of dwindling economy and worsening of lifestyle of common man.

He demanded the Government to take serious note of power crisis on war-footing for the larger interests of the economy and Pakistani citizens.