Sindh govt spent Rs500b on projects in the last four years

Other development schemes that are in the pipeline will be completed by next February.

KARACHI: The provincial government has spent about Rs500 billion on development schemes over the last four years, and plans to finish a number of other projects by February next year.

A meeting was held on Tuesday at the Chief Minister House in which development projects in the pipeline were discussed. Among them is a 100-bed hospital to be named after Nusrat Bhutto. Thirty other schemes in the health department will also be completed by next February.

Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah was upset by the sluggish pace at which they were being completed. He was also dissatisfied at the fact that trauma centres in some districts had been closed, and formed a three-member committee to look into the matter. A trauma centre will also be opened in Karachi.



But the spate of schemes do not stop here: Biometric systems will be installed in all secretariat offices so the attendance of government employees can be monitored electronically.

An amount of Rs5 billion will be spent on water supply schemes. A 176-kilometre road from Karachi to Thar coal via Thatta and Badin is also being built at the cost of Rs3 billion. The chief minister also asked all MPAs responsible for schemes to complete them soon.  The officials attending the meeting also discussed the projects in the education sector completed over the last year.
Fourteen universities were established over the last four years and two girls cadet colleges are being established. The chief minister said around 0.36 million young people have been trained in various fields.

Of them, between 30,000 and 40,000 have obtained jobs.

He added that the government will give 4,000 motorcycles to poor people.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 12^th, 2012.