RECORDER REPORT

KARACHI: Pakistan Standards and Quality Control Authority (PSQCA) has finally agreed to ‘surrender’ the ownership of land that houses its head office in favour of Sindh government, said a senior PSQCA official.

The standard body is likely to shift offices and equipments to its main laboratory complex in Gulistan-e-Jauhar this week, as MoST has formally asked it to vacate the facility located in Barrack-77, Secretariat 4-B in Saddar vicinity of the metropolis, with immediate effect.

It is relevant to mention here that Sindh government had been asking PSQCA – the national standard body works under administrative control of Ministry of Science and Technology, to vacate the property for the last one and a half year.

PSQCA and MoST were categorically refusing to vacate the land to Sindh Government arguing the facility had been allotted for the federal government back in 1952, when Karachi was the federal capital.

The official said provincial government wants to build a ‘secretariat complex’ on the land and has already started construction work with demolishing the authority’s Legal Department Office portion besides digging a trench deep about 16-feet just outside the authority’s office building.

“We will vacate the office by the end of current week” he concluded.