Sindh govt to procure snorkels, fire tenders for local bodies

Out of 89 new fire tenders, 15 will be provided to Karachi

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has directed the provincial local government department to expedite the procurement process of snorkels, fire tenders and tractor-trolleys for the local government bodies of the province.

He issued these directives while presiding over a meeting on Saturday with officials including Sindh Local Government Minister Nasir Hussain Shah, Excise and Taxation Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla, Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro, local government secretary Roshan Shaikh, finance secretary Hassan Naqvi, Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority DG Raheem Shaikh, consultant Niaz Soomro, and others.

The CM said that the Sindh government had decided to provide snorkels to all the divisional headquarters, as well as tractor-trolleys, fire brigades, garbage vehicles, and waste compactors to municipal committees and towns. The proposal is to purchase 15 snorkels, 89 fire tenders and a large number of garbage trucks and compactors at a price of about Rs4 billion. He added that Rs1.5 billion had been allocated for this for the current year 2019-20.

The snorkels will be provided to Hyderabad Municipal Corporation, Qasimabad, Nawabshah, Sukkur, Larkana, and Mirpurkhas. These divisional headquarters, apart from Qasimabad, do not have any snorkels to extinguish fires in high-rise buildings.

Meanwhile, out of 89 fire tenders, 15 will be provided to Karachi, 10 to Hyderabad, eight to Larkana, six to Shaheed Benazirabad and four to Qasimabad.

The chief minister directed the local government minister to revise the list of municipal committees and towns so that the most populous ones could be provided fire brigades on priority basis in the first phase and the remainder be given them in the second phase.

Shah also told officials to make sure that the local government bodies across the province, including in rural areas, maintained proper cleanliness of the streets and roads as well as their sanitation systems. It was further decided during the meeting to invite international proposals so that external companies too can compete for the provision of services.

The local government minister informed the CM that he had worked out a plan to develop a Geo-Information System (GIS) of all the forests in Sindh. CM Shah asked the minister to involve the Board of Revenue's automation technology for the GIS mapping.

The CM added that the provincial government will be able to use the GIS to watch the activities occurring in the forests and even keep an eye on those who have been given forest land to see whether they are complying with the conditions of land allotment.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 26^th, 2020.