KARACHI: President of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI), Iftikhar Ahmed Vohra, has said that the Karachi Chamber will support Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA) in its effort to convince the Sindh government to compensate the affectees of fire incident at a polyester yarn godown in Site area on May 4, 2015.
President KCCI was exchanging views with more than 100 affectees of the fire incident who were led by Chairman Pakistan Yarn Merchants Association (PYMA), Muhammad Saquib Goodluck at a meeting during their visit to Karachi Chamber.
Senior Vice President KCCI, Muhammad Ibrahim Kasumbi, Vice President KCCI, Agha Shahab Ahmed Khan, Former President KCCI, Abdullah Zaki, Chairman PYMA Muhammad Saquib Goodluck and KCCI Managing Committee members were also present at the meeting.
On the occasion, President KCCI announced to form a committee under the supervision of Senior Vice President KCCI, Muhammad Ibrahim Kasumbi in order to help PYMA assess losses suffered by the affectees. Besides SVP KCCI, the committee comprises KCCI Managing Committee members, Imran Agar and Saquib Naseem, Chairman PYMA Mohammad Saquib Goodluck, and affected traders including Muhammad Usman, Munaaf Cheena, Irfan Zakaria and Muhammad Irfan.
Expressing deep concern over poor services of Fire Department, President KCCI stressed the need to improve the services of fire department according to the international standards by providing necessary equipment to this department which would surely enable the fire fighters to effectively deal with such incident whereas the number of Fire Stations and Brigades must also be raisedsp.
Speaking on the occasion, Senior Vice President KCCI, Muhammad Ibrahim Kasumbi advised PYMA to devise well-defined strategies to effectively deal with the situation so that grievances being faced by the traders of polyester yarn could be minimized as they were facing serious financial crisis.
Earlier, Chairman PYMA, Muhammad Saquib Goodluck, while briefing the losses suffered by almost the entire yarn market, stated that around 50 traders have directly suffered severe losses while dozens of small, medium and big traders of polyester yarn along with scores of brokers have also borne substantial losses due to this abrupt fire in which polyester yarn of 45 containers was burned to ashes. Initial estimates suggest that polyester yarn of up to Rs300 million was warehoused in the affected godown in site area.
He held the fire department responsible for making fire wilder and uncontrollable as it could have been extinguished within a couple of hours and the traders could have been saved from grave losses if Karachi city’s fire department was well-equipped to deal with such type of fire.
“Losses of millions of rupees could have been reduced drastically if our fire department had adequate equipment to deal with such fire but unfortunately, despite repeated incidents all over the city, the fire department of the cosmopolitan city of Karachi remains deprived of basic equipment. It is a matter of grave concern that the fire brigades run out of water and the snorkel remains defective in such emergency situations”, he added.
