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Industry News December 2006 |
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CPLC draws up security plan
FAISALABAD, June 7: Citizen-Police Liaison Committee district chief Saqib Shahzad has announced installation of a chain of closed-circuit televisions in all police stations and busy areas in Faisalabad city.
At a news conference on Wednesday, the CPLC head and executive members - Junaid Riaz Banth, Ahmad Raza Bhalli and Sheikh Waheed - said the committee had installed 59 Static Video Cameras and Speed Dome Cameras at Clock Tower, D-Ground, People's Colony, railway station and various worship places for security.
It had also chalked out a comprehensive surveillance programme to be carried out at a cost of Rs10 million under which more cameras would be installed at various places and the focal points leading to the city.
He said three top consultancy companies were being engaged to complete the installations within two months. These gadgets, he said, would have connectivity with Rescue-15 and central control rooms and record movements within a radius of 30 kilometres.
He said the CPLC settled 919 cases through arbitration out of 989 cases during the last three years. The total recovery touched Rs84.5 million.
He further said the CPLC had provided 200 wireless sets, 50 motorcycles and other traffic police equipment to the police for patrolling. Moreover, Rescue-15 of D-Ground, People's Colony, and Ghulam Muhammadabad had been provided with ambulances, wireless communication equipment, cars and motorcycles, besides video surveillance apparatus.
He said the ground breaking of Rescue-15 on the Canal Road near Kashmir Bridge will be performed on Friday (tomorrow).
Highlighting the committee achievements, he said during the last five years, the CPLC had converted the People's Colony, Gulberg, Sargodha Road and Khurrianwala police stations into 'model' stations.
The CPLC in collaboration with an NGO would arrange a comprehensive training course for the local police officers, he said, adding the training of the first batch of 20 officers would start within a fortnight.
There was also a plan to shortly start a driving school to help the intending people and properly train them. It would be a professional school of international standard and only those passing the test at this school would be issued computerised driving licenses.
Fire brigade to get helicopter, equipment
KARACHI, April 6: The City Naib Nazim, Nasreen Jalil, has said a helicopter, fire tenders and other machinery will be purchased for the fire brigade and civil defence at a cost of Rs150 million to help cope with any emergency situation and avoid possible damages.
Speaking to station officers and officials of all fire stations and members of the Fire Brigade and Civil Defence Committee, she said a PC-1 for the helicopter had been approved.
She said fire fighters were heroes who used their capabilities to save precious human lives.
The city government wants to reorganise the department on modern lines in view of its importance and utility, and its problems will be solved on priority while staff shortage will be overcome, she said.
The Chief Fire Officer, Syed Kazim Ali, said the department not only performed to put out accidental fires, but also worked in natural calamities like heavy rains, storms, earthquakes, etc.
He said a fire station and a rescue centre had been setup on the coast for safety of picnickers, adding that 46 trained lifeguards remained present every time. About 1,000 persons are helped every year, he said.
Mr Ali said there was a need for 200 fire stations for the existing population of the city while it had only 20 fire stations. He said on an average 15 to 20 fire incidents occurred daily.-APP.
Pakistan gets its first DNA testing lab
ISLAMABAD, March 31: Pakistan established its first DNA test laboratory in Islamabad on Friday with the assistance of China to investigate complicated terrorism and criminal cases.
Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said at the inaugural ceremony at the city's Sitara Market that the government was committed to make DNA technology a routine part of the investigations to enhance the ability of the criminal justice system in tracking down terrorists and criminals.
The DNA laboratory has been established by the National Police Bureau under its National Forensic Science Programme (NFSP) at a cost of Rs8 million. The government of China provided the technology and equipment for the laboratory.
It has facilities for testing cases related to microbiology, ballistics and explosives, chemical examination and toxicology.
"The establishment of DNA lab is a major step in the on- going efforts of the ministry of interior to better equip the police and law enforcement agencies in their fight against crime, terrorism and public disorder," the minister said.
He said: "DNA technology is potentially the most remarkable crime-fighting tool of the 21st century."
In recent years, the scientific advances have served to stimulate a greater public awareness and use of DNA evidence in civil and criminal proceedings.
The Institute of Forensic Sciences , Ministry of Public Security of China has trained two of Pakistani scientists in the latest DNA technology.
"This cooperation is yet another gesture of the friendship between Pakistan and the Peoples Republic of China ," he added, looking forward to continuing cooperation and support in future endeavours.
Interior secretary Syed Kamal Shah said the use of forensic DNA technology to associate individuals with crimes has produced a revolution in the way crimes were solved.
The forensic DNA, he said, had the ability to conclusively eliminate or implicate an individual as the perpetrator of a crime even when the suspect is unknown to the victim. Before the DNA testing facility, tracking crimes such as sexual assaults committed by a stranger were very difficult, if not impossible to solve, said the interior secretary.
He said the DNA laboratory has been established by the National Police Bureau as part of the National Forensic Science Project, which seeks to have state-of-art forensic facilities at Islamabad , Lahore , Karachi , Peshawar and Quetta .
He said forensic science was the new frontier for law enforcement, and the DNA laboratory would be a pioneer in providing quality forensic services.
Mr Shah said DNA laboratory was the most important part of the planned forensic capacity building effort and will significantly enhance law enforcement capability to use DNA technology in diverse areas such as detection of serious crimes, determination of paternity, identification in mass disasters, missing person investigations, even historic and archeological research.
4 Prisons to have high security barracks
RAWALPINDI, March 31: High security barracks, being constructed in four different prisons of Punjab , will be completed by June 2006, and a serving army officer will be made in charge of each barrack, official sources said.
Those convicted on charges of terrorism or still under trial would be kept in the new barracks.
Equipped with close circuit cameras and mobile phone jammers, the barracks would be built one each in Adiala jail Rawalpindi , Multan jail, Lahore jail and Faisalabad central jail.
When contacted for comments, Inspector General Prisons Punjab Capt (retired) Sarfraz Mufti said the four prisons were under construction and would be completed by the end of June.
He said each new heavily-guarded barrack meant for dangerous criminals including terrorists would have the capacity to house at least 60 prisoners.
The IG Prisons said there were also proposals that the civilian officers related to the jails would be given modern training, and services of foreign experts would be sought for this purpose.
Meanwhile, an under-trial prisoner, who was attacked by a group of prisoners on March 17, was shifted to Jhelum , apparently to maintain peace in the troubled Adiala jail, sources said on Friday.
Imran Saleem, whose complaint to the Supreme Court had brought a major reshuffle in Adiala jail administration, had been shifted to the DHQ hospital Rawalpindi after he sustained injuries during the attack.
KARACHI : Snorkel for fire brigade next month
KARACHI, May 9: The city government has planned to purchase a new snorkel for the fire brigade department by the next month and five more by the end of this year. This was stated by an official of the fire brigade department. He said that the city government would purchase the snorkel and additional equipment costing Rs650 million.
Twelve fire engines and the only snorkel, which were out-of-order for the past two months, had been sent to workshop for repairs, he said adding that all out-of-order fire tenders including snorkel would be on road forthwith.
Sources said that only 30 fire engines out of a total fleet 50 were functional, which were not sufficient to handle large fires especially as the snorkel had also been out-of-order for the last one year.
There are hundreds of high-rise buildings in the city. Most have no adequate fire-safety or exists. The majority is without fire fighting alarms and other necessities. The sole snorkel purchased 18 years ago has completed its life. The department concerned has the necessity to use it to extinguish fires in high-rise buildings. However, when snorkel is not operational, fire fighters face serious difficulties in controlling the fire in high rises.
The fire-fighting department needs to be rehabilitated. The old fire engines require time consuming and costly repairs.
KARACHI: Work on Corridor-I to begin shortly: Karachi Mass Transit Project
Karachi,
May 29: City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal announced on Monday that work on much-publicised and long-awaited Corridor-I of Karachi Mass Transit System, from Mereweather Tower to Sohrab Goth, will begin either in June or July.
Besides, the ground-breaking ceremony of an elevated expressway, to be built on BOT basis by a Malaysian firm (from Jinnah bridge to Quaidabad) as an alternative route to Sharea Faisal will take place on Aug 8 and it will completed in two-and-a-half years, he added.
Speaking at a news conference, he unveiled the details of his recent week-long visit to China where he had detailed discussions with the Shanghai 's mayor and representatives of various multi-national companies who played a vital role in the progress of Shanghai .
Terming his talks with the Shanghai mayor as ``successful and fruitful'', the Nazim said since Shanghai had made progress by leaps and bounds, the mayor was asked to assist the city government Karachi in various sectors, such as city's infrastructure, solid-waste management system, mass transit system and promotion of investment in Karachi.
He said the Shanghai mayor was also requested to send a delegation of experts to Karachi so that the CDGK could also benefit from their experiences in different sectors, especially those relating to mass transit corridor, circular railway, elevated expressways on major and busy roads, as well as city's master plan.
Expressing his gratitude to the Shanghai's mayor for ensuring all possible help to the CDGK in various sectors, he said the delegation of Chinese experts would soon be visiting the city to inspect mega projects in Karachi.Recalling that Karachi and Shanghai were declared `twin-cities' after the signing of an agreement in 1984, Mr Kamal deplored that although 22 years had elapsed, no progress had, so far, been made.
He said that since Shanghai is not only an important city of the world, but its economy also ranks at No one among the cities of the world, the CDGK has now decided to take benefit from the twin-cities agreement so that contacts between the two cities of both the friendly countries are revived and Karachi is benefited from the rich experience of Shanghai, especially in developing its infrastructure.
Referring to his meetings with the representatives of various multi-national companies of Shanghai , he said he was pleased to note that dozens of the multi-national firms were willing to invest in the city.
He was optimistic that with the arrival of Shanghai 's investors in Karachi not only the city's infrastructure would be developed, but job opportunities would also be created on a large scale for youths, especially the educated ones.
He said keeping in view the interest being shown by foreign investors in the city, the CDGK has decided to set up its foreign investment secretariat which will start functioning within a week.
He said the task of the CDGK's foreign investment secretariat would be to facilitate and attract foreign investors through the country's foreign embassies. The foreigners would also be properly guided concerning their investment in the city's mega projects.
At the outset, the Nazim said at present as many as 551 development projects are being undertaken at an estimated cost of Rs30 billion and work on all these projects was progressing satisfactorily and strictly in accordance with their scheduled date of completion.
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Banknotes to have new design, features
Karachi,
June 12: The State Bank of Pakistan during the next fiscal year will issue newly-designed currency notes of all denominations with high-tech security features. These new security features will not only check the counterfeiting but will make these notes comparable with euro and greenback.
The SBP recently introduced Rs5,000 note and a newly-designed Rs10 note with new security features.
The chief spokesman of the SBP in a press statement here on Monday said that the SBP would launch newly-designed banknotes of Rs50, Rs100, Rs500 and Rs1,000 during the 2006-07. It had already launched newly-designed banknote of Rs20.He said the purpose of launching of these notes was to minimise the possibility of counterfeiting.
He further said that the rapid technological advancements in digital imaging and printing helped counterfeiters to easily forge banknotes which lacked advanced security features. To meet these threats, there had been a significant technological change in banknote designs and features internationally to make the modern banknotes difficult to forge as well as to efficiently process the notes through electronic devices such as note counting machines etc.
"Most note processing machines in the market now require the availability of machine readable features also in banknotes to detect counterfeiting through colour printers and photocopiers. This necessitated the introduction of new banknotes in the country," he added.
The issuance of Rs5,000 note is still under criticism and the economists believe that the high-denomination note was introduced because the purchasing power of rupee had drastically reduced in the last five years.
Economists also argue that when both the SBP and the government encourage documenting all transactions and persuading people to make payments through cheques, there is no reason to issue such note of high denomination. The note will be out of reach for majority of Pakistanis while middle class cannot afford to keep it as their earnings are not very high.
The spokesman said that the main benefit of introducing Rs5,000 banknote was to provide convenience and facilitate higher value transactions. "Issuance of larger denominated note also economises the expenditure on printing of notes as higher denomination notes will reduce the consumption of lower denomination notes," he explained.
He said that the old denomination banknotes were introduced many years ago and there had not been any significant change in their designs and features since then. The last major change in our banknotes occurred in July 1987 when a new banknote of Rs1,000 was introduced. At that time, the total notes in circulation were Rs78 billion which had now gone up to nearly Rs800 billion, he added.
Referring to the criticism of see-through feature introduced in the newly-designed notes of Rs10, Rs20 and Rs5,000, the spokesman said this was one of the most significant anti-copier and anti-scanner features introduced to minimise their counterfeiting.
He said that the banknotes of European Union countries, Australia , Canada , Croatia , Myanmar , Hong Kong , Mauritius , Sweden , Turkey , Lebanon , Malaysia and South Africa also carried the similar features.
The newly-designed banknotes would contain a special security feature to facilitate the visually impaired persons to easily recognise them, he informed.
"With a view to facilitate the handling of new notes, their size has been kept smaller than the existing notes. The width of the new designed banknotes is 65mm as against 73mm of the existing banknotes while the length of new banknotes has also been kept smaller than the existing ones," the spokesman added.
He said that the old banknotes would continue to remain in circulation along with the new ones.
Washington may help train security officials
RAWALPINDI, June 18: The US has offered Pakistan help in training personnel of provincial law-enforcement agencies and capacity building for prosecutors, Dawn learnt reliably on Sunday.
Sources said that during a recent meeting of the Joint Working Group of the two governments, the United States also showed interest in providing assistance for law-enforcement reforms.
The meeting was informed that steps were being taken to modernise police in Pakistan .
The US offered more training facilities for the law-enforcement agencies and possible assistance in setting up of modern forensic laboratories in Pakistan .
Pakistan suggested that the training facilities should be extended to the provincial headquarters for better results and asked the US for more equipment for the police.
The sources both sides discussed the importance of the automatic fingerprint identification system which was being installed at the Federal Investigation Agency headquarters with a $10 million US aid.
The meeting was informed that 2,800 law-enforcement personnel had been trained in Pakistan , including the VVIP security training courses.
Pakistan informed the meeting that it had been made mandatory for police officers to undertake the courses conducted at the National Police Academy and the FIA Academy .
It was urged that training for prosecution officers should be organised at the Federal Judicial Academy .
Pakistan said the vetting process introduced by the US posed some problems and caused delay in the selection of officers for training.
The Pakistan side informed the meeting that in line with the Police Order 2002, separation of investigation from operations, establishment of a federal police complaint authority and a public safety commission were in progress, while a Criminal Justice Committee had been formed.
The United State said it had trained some 2,300 police officers from Afghanistan and it was ready to offer similar facilities to Pakistan , if demanded.
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KARACHI: City to get modern fire service body
Karachi,
June 28: The city government on Wednesday said that it had decided to establish a modern fire service organization and a well-equipped search and rescue team to cope with any untoward situation in an efficient manner.
According to details, the city government has decided to set up a fire service organization of international standards at a cost of more than Rs57.7 million, besides raising an international standard search and rescue team at a cost of Rs350 million. Furthermore, Rs8.8 million would be spent on the procurement of small vehicles for fire brigade.
On the directives of City Nazim Syed Mustafa Kamal new fire tenders are being purchased at a cost of Rs16.3 million, while three new fire stations would be set up at a cost of Rs30 million. Two new snorkels would also be purchased.
A new department of disaster management is also being established and in this regard 22 small vehicles would be given to the fire brigade. New fire stations would be set up at vacant areas under various flyovers. In the first phase, a new fire station would be set up under the Gulshan Flyover near NIPA Chowrangi.
The city government has also decided to purchase disaster management equipment worth Rs650 million, which would be delivered to the city government within a month.
Presently, 20 fire stations are working in Karachi and the fire brigade had got approval for the required staff for its 12 stations. Now, it has been approved to fill 376 new vacancies in the remaining 8 fire stations.
The city government has also purchased new lifeboats to save beachgoers from mishaps at the city beaches.
Deal cancelled: Meanwhile, the city government has cancelled contract with Hilton Trans Limited, as the firm had failed to run wide-body buses in the required number.
According to a city government press release, the transport department of the CDGK had inked a contract with the Hilton Trans Limited on March 22, 2004 for running new buses on two UTS routes, but later it received complaints about the performance of the company, its failure to bring required number of the buses on roads and payment of the dues to financial institutions.
The city government sent several notices to the company and finally cancelled the deal with it. It also blacklisted two of the company's directors Mohammad Arshad Lateef and Mohammad Saleem Rafi for UTS/ transport sector operations.-PPI.
Rs. 32bn development projects cleared
ISLAMABAD , April 18: The Planning Commission has cleared 18 major development projects worth Rs32.1 billion which would now be formally approved by the Executive Committee of the National Economic Council (ECNEC) here on April 22.
Official sources told Dawn on Tuesday that the ECNEC meeting to be presided over by Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz would ensure that the finance division releases funds well in advance for new development projects.
The objective, sources said, was to remove the objections of the ministries, divisions and the provincial departments about the delay in disbursement of funds that invariably results in cost escalation of projects.
The government has been advised by its economic advisors to avoid increase in the budget deficit due to various reasons, including an enormous increase in the cost of hundreds of development projects every year.
The new development projects are in the energy, health, higher education, physical planning & housing, rural development/area development, social, transport and communication sectors.
Five of the development projects for Karachi have especially been cleared by the Planning Commission which include a bridge over the Malir River connecting Shah Faisal Colony with Korangi sector-10 (Rs6.2 billion), establishment of accident and ancillary services complex at the Civil Hospital Karachi (Rs1.4 billion), construction of Sohrab Goth interchange at the intersection of Shahrah-i-Pakistan and Rashid Minhas Road (Rs579.95 million), institutional enhancement to implement the Karachi Mega City Development project (Rs1.1 billion) and provision of MRI and CT scanners for the Civil Hospital Karachi.
Other projects are a Japanese-assisted rural road construction project (Rs9.8 billion), improvement and refurbishing of existing sewerage treatment plants (Rs2.7 billion), Fulbright Scholarship Support Programme (Rs7 billion), National Tuberculosis Control Programme 2005-10 (Rs1.1 billion), construction of the Sibi Rakhni Road (Rs1.4 billion), widening and remodelling of roads and intersection of the Islamabad International Airport to the Flying Club Rawalpindi (Rs1.2 billion), procurement of fire-brigades for Islamabad, the Kala Dhaka Development Project, transmission scheme for dispersal of power from the 2x50mw windmill power plant at Mirpur Sakro, the Kohistan Development Project, the Indus Highway Project (N-5 Phase III) and strengthening of the Gambat Institute of Medical Sciences.
US to train SIG on post-blast situation
RAWALPINDI, July 17: The US government has decided to launch a training programme for the Special Investigation Group (SIG), a newly formed force by Pakistan, to enhance its capabilities of handling a post-blast situation and to improve the security system of vital installations, it is learnt on Monday.
The decision was made by the US authorities at a recent meeting of the joint working group on counter-terrorism and law enforcement.
The SIG was formed in the Federal Investigation Agency with the help of the United States to combat terrorism and cyber crime. Its regional offices were established in provincial capitals.
The SIG personnel have already been trained in identifying and interrogating terrorists and investigating terrorist activities, bank frauds and informal money transactions.
A batch of 50 officers was imparted a three-month training by the US experts at FIA's headquarters in Islamabad . The focus of the training was improving investigation skill.
Talking to Dawn, SIG deputy director Mirza Yasin said the SIG's job was to hold joint investigation and share information with police regarding cases relating to terrorism.
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