Nawaz comes out all guns blazing against Sindh govt

Announces Rs1b grant for uplift schemes in impoverished district

JACOBABAD: Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Friday announced a grant of Rs1 billion and mega development projects for the impoverished Jacobabad district of Sindh. The projects include electrification of villages, gas supply, women vocational training centre and Pakistan Agricultural Storage and Services Corporation centre.

“For me, Jacobabad city deserves development funds the most. If Islamabad, Lahore or any other developed city is given Rs1.0 billion, Jacobabad deserves Rs2.0 billion,” Sharif said addressing a huge public gathering. He was accompanied by Minister for Railways Khawaja Saad Rafique and other senior leaders of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N).

Sharif said the presence of such a huge crowd in the scorching heat proved that the people of Sindh had pinned great hopes on the PML-N as the provincial government had failed to cope with their needs. He questioned why the Sindh government had shattered the hopes of local people by failing to provide roads, schools and hospitals and even clean drinking water?



He announced provision of 100 power transformers to cope with district’s needs and also promised to launch his health insurance scheme without any delay to provide free-of-cost medical treatment at both state-run and private hospitals.

Sharif said it was deplorable that Jacobabad had the highest number of Hepatitis-B patients. Even in the 21st century, the situation of Jacobabad looked 100-year-old where nothing had changed, he added.  Had the provincial government delivered, people would not have pinned such hopes on him.

Referring to the lawlessness in Karachi back in 2013, Sharif claimed that after coming to power, law and order situation in Karachi was addressed and now peace is prevailing in the city. Similarly in 1991, the PML-N government had rid the people of Sindh of dacoits and criminals. “Before our government, Sindh, especially the rural areas, were being ruled by the dacoits,” he added.



He said the federal government was carrying out development projects in Punjab, Balochistan and Islamabad which shall also be replicated in Sindh and Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa.

He said the Rs1.0 billion development fund would help with provision of clean drinking water to the people, improvement of flood-ravaged roads and other infrastructure projects in Jacobabad.

He assured to monitor the usage of funds to ensure transparency. The people of Sindh would feel a clear difference via development by the federal government, he added.

Earlier, addressing the crowd, Saad Rafique, referring to the Sindh chief minister’s warning to the federal government on the gas supply issue, said the Sindh government had 49 per cent share in Nooriabad Power Plant while a private owner had 51 per cent.  He questioned the gathering whether they knew who was the private owner and the crowd shouted ‘Zardari’.  He said the provincial government was bound to give Rs1.0 billion guarantee prior to getting gas supply.

He said the Sindh government was hindering the construction of a 400-kilometre portion of motorway in the province, linking it with restoration of gas supply to the said power plant.

He said the PPP leadership compelled them to expose the real story behind the issue of gas supply.

(Additional input from APP)