No false promises: CM makes first official visit to Hyderabad

Meets with city officials, residents, intellectuals

HYDERABAD: On his maiden but whirlwind visit on Wednesday to Hyderabad after becoming chief minister of Sindh, Murad Ali Shah seemed to have taken stock of the city's problems, which his predecessor failed to address in eight years, firsthand.

After landing in his chopper on the Superhighway outside Hyderabad, the CM embarked on a three-hour tour, passing through the densely populated and civic-issue ridden areas of the City taluka on his way to Latifabad and Qasimabad talukas.

The broken roads and sewage puddles caused by faulty drainage and the monsoon rain aftermath caused expressions of dismay on the faces of the officials of the district administration.

"I can't promise to turn this city into Paris in one-and-a-half years but at least I will try to put the development on the right course so that my successor can move forward on that path of development," he told the media.



Yet, the media craved to break a story about disciplinary action against any official, to no avail.

As he entered the city, crowds of Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) workers welcomed him at different spots, while protesting former staff of the Hyderabad Development Authority and other government departments also lined up.

Civic facilities in Hyderabad continue to be a chimera for residents. Water supply, drainage, garbage dumping and burning around residential localities and waterways, unplanned urban expansion, transport, lack of traffic regulation and other issues feature the long list of everyday problems painfully confronted by the citizenry.

But in his statements to the media and interactions with groups of people, the CM seemed to have little to offer to allay concerns of the people.

Old memories

Shah also visited his alma mater, St Bona Ventures High School, near Tilak Incline and offered prayers at the graves of his grandparents at cantonment graveyard.

Diverse group

The chief minister met four separate delegations of writers and intellectuals, traders and industrialists, agriculturists and the district administration.

According to Jami Chandio, an intellectual and civil society representative, their delegation criticised the performance of the PPP government during the last eight years. "We told him that people of Sindh expected that the PPP would alleviate what Sindh suffered during [President Gen Pervez] Musharraf's regime. But to our great dismay, the PPP governance turned out to be worse."

Poet Ishaq Samejo drew the CM's attention to the sorry state of public sector universities and requested him to turn the tide by appointing top officials in the varsities on merit.

Samejo told The Express Tribune that he also proposed stopping the culture of stipends paid to writers and artists and use that money to buy books and artwork instead. He also suggested medical help for ailing artists by providing them free health services in leading private hospitals at the government's expense.

Published in The Express Tribune, August 18^th, 2016.