Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday presiding over a meeting to shape up Annual Development Program (ADP) for the next financial year-2023-24, has directed his planning & development team to prioritize the rehabilitation of flood-affected people, repair and maintenance of infrastructure devastated by the recent floods, prepare a plan for the development of agricultural and industrial sectors. “We have to resolve the transport issue of Karachi by completing different BRT projects in the next financial year,” he said and directed his team to make necessary financial allocations accordingly.
The meeting was held at CM House and was attended by Chief Secretary Sohail Rajput, Chairman P&D Hassan Naqvi, Secretary Finance Sajid Jamal Abro, Secretary to CM Rahim Shaikh, Member P&D Fatah Tunio, and others concerned. It was pointed out that during the current financial year (2022-23) 4158 schemes, including 2506 ongoing and 1652 new were launched for Rs 332.165 billion and then the allocation was revised to Rs 267.652 billion against which Rs 181.8 have been released. The expenditures against the released amount have been recorded at Rs 126.228 billion. The chief minister directed the PD to complete at least 800 schemes by the end of the current financial year.
The chief minister giving c guidelines to the P&D for finalizing the ADP for the next financial year said priority would be given to the schemes of infrastructure damaged by the devastating floods. “I want to repair and reconstruct the school buildings, hospitals, roads, and irrigation network so that they could be made functional,” he said. Syed Murad Ali Shah said that the ongoing and new transport schemes for Karachi have to be completed and launched during the next financial year to resolve the transport issue of the city. “The P&D must propose the allocation of funds as local share for such foreign-funded transport schemes,” he said. Chairman P&D Hassan Naqvi briefing the CM Sindh said that six new foreign-funded schemes of the World Bank and one of the Asian Development Bank have been approved.
They include WB- Sindh Flood Emergency Rehabilitation Project for Rs 48 billion, Sindh Flood Emergency Housing Reconstruction Project for Rs 110 billion, Sindh Water & Agriculture Transformation Project of Rs64 billion, Sindh Integrated Health & Population Project Rs 55 billion and Strengthening the Social Delivery Protection System for Rs 42 billion and Sindh Flood Emergency Assistance Project by Asian Development Bank for Rs 43.9 billion. The chief minister directed the P&D dept to expedite the completion of the required formalities of the Rs 600 billion Karachi Water & Sewerage Service Improvement project so that water board services could be improved.
He also discussed foreign-funded projects in the pipeline such as (WB) Sindh Transformation Accelerated Rural Services (STARS, the Sindh Livestock & Aquaculture Development (SLAD) project, and of Asian Development Bank’s projects, including the Sindh Secondary Cities Improvement Project, Phase-II, Katchi Abadi’s project, Sindh Coastal Resilience Project, Provincial Road Improvement Project, Sindh Health System Strengthening Project and Integrated Transport Improvement Project of Hyderabad.
