HYDERABAD: President of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) Adeel Siddiqui has urged the prime minister and the Sindh chief minister to announce a business assistance package for rehabilitating business infrastructure destroyed during devastating rains in Sindh, particularly Hyderabad.

He said Sindh government should offer some relief to businessmen in provincial taxes.

Adeel Siddiqui was addressing a meeting of the business community on Thursday. Appreciating Sindh government’s step of declaring Hyderabad as a calamity-hit district and realising difficulties of the business community, the HCCI chief said urban flooding triggered by 400mm of rainfall in Hyderabad had destroyed homes, shops, and warehouses.

He maintained that traders were not able to run their businesses due to two months long rains. They were going through mental agony due to fallouts of rains, he stated. He called for deferring payments of utilities’ bills for two months under present circumstances. He said businessmen had borne losses to the tune of millions of rupees.

The HCCI chief claimed that like provincial government, federal government should also offer relief in taxes to business community to enable businessmen revive their business activities as possible. HCCI president wondered when district administration would be able to dewater areas affected by rainwater accumulation as all business centres were still flooded.

Adeel Siddiqui said without drainage of rainwater, trade activities could not be revived. He said Hyderabad was being meted out step motherly treatment. He said out of billions of rupees relief fund for rain affected people of Sindh, CM Sindh had given Rs10m for Hyderabad which contributes billions of rupees taxes to provincial and federal kitties. He said that this Rs10m was just a joke with businessmen.

HCCI chief said Hyderabad Electric Supply Company had multiplied miseries of people of the city adding that several transformers were burnt during and after rains leading to prolonged disruption of electricity in those areas.

Siddiqui said Hesco staff was seen demanding money for repair of transformers which was highly deplorable. He said telecommunication system had been paralyzed and asked Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to pay attention to this issue and resolve this matter with cellular phone companies.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2022