KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday decided to declare a model village in every district in the next financial year for which he had sought recommendations from the elected representatives.

“That model village should not have a population of more than 1,000 and it will be given the facilities of school, hospital, water supply, sanitation, roads, streetlights, community centre and transport,” said Mr Shah while presiding over review meetings of 401 ongoing development schemes launched under the provincial ADP in five districts for Rs28.97 billion here at CM House.

Mr Shah spoke to the elected representatives of Badin, Thatta, Sujawal, Mirpurkhas and Tharparkar districts in separate meetings.

Those meeting were attended by Chief Secretary Mumtaz Shah, senior adviser to CM on works Nisar Khuhro, Health Minister Azra Pechuho, Public Health Engineering Minister Shabbir Bijarani, Education Minister Saeed Ghani, Agriculture Minister Ismail Rahu, Irrigation Minister Sohail Siyal, chairman of P&D Mohammed Waseem, finance secretary Hassan Naqvi and other secretaries, MPAs, MNAs and senators of those districts, divisional commissioners, DIGs and deputy commissioners concerned and SSPs.

Mr Shah said his government had decided to declare at least one village in every district a model village in the next financial year. The village would be provided with best education, health and water supply schemes as streets of those villages would be made with bricks adorned with streetlights, solar energy and approach roads.

“I want you to sit together and identify such villages as per criteria and submit your recommendations to me,” he told the elected representatives of those districts.

The chief minister said the elected representatives would have to give ownership to the ongoing development works in their respective areas.

“I need your input for the next ADP, 2020-21 and you should keep an eye on the ongoing development works, particularly the pace of work and its quality so that people could have best schemes in their area,” he said.

The development works of the five districts the chief minister reviewed are as follows:

Badin

In the meeting it was disclosed 75 schemes, including 26 new ones had been launched for Rs3.24bn through provincial ADP in Badin district. The government has released Rs2.34bn, which is 72 per cent of the allocation, against which utilisation has been recorded at Rs1.76bn which is 75pc of the releases. Under the District ADP Rs591.31 million schemes are in progress.

The chief minister directed departments concerned to complete 35 schemes by the end of this financial year.

Thatta

The meeting was told that 78 schemes of Rs3.16bn had been launched in Thatta district, of them 12 schemes were those which had up to Rs25bn allocation and their funds had been released in one go. There are 12 other schemes, which have more than Rs25bn allocation, which have been released funds in two instalments. There are 20 ongoing district-specific schemes and 32 are new.

The chief minister said against the allocation of Rs3.16bn he had released Rs1.29bn but the utilisation was Rs457.14m which was merely 37pc of the released funds.

“This is unacceptable. The officers concerned and departments will have to follow their schemes so that they can be completed in time,” he said.

Sujawal

The development portfolio of district Sujawal is Rs1.16bn to complete 46 schemes against which the government has released Rs556m while the expenditures are Rs319.57m, which is 57pc of the releases. Out of 46 schemes there are nine schemes with an allocation of up to Rs25m that have been released funds in one go. Four schemes are those which have more than Rs25m and their releases are being made in two instalments and 11 schemes are district specific while 22 schemes are new.

Mirpurkhas

In Mirpurkhas district various departments have launched 80 schemes, including 34 new projects with an allocation of Rs6.76bn against which Rs4.74bn has been released while the expenditures remained Rs3bn which is 63pc of the releases. The chief minister said out of 80 schemes, 12 schemes had been released with 100pc funds, nine with 72pc funds, 25 schemes with 79pc funds and 34 others had received five per cent funds.

Tharparkar

The Sindh government has launched 122 schemes in Tharparkar at a cost of Rs14.65bn against which Rs8.44bn has been released and the utilisation is Rs4.52bn which is 54pc of the released amount. The meeting was told that 10 schemes of Rs110.87m had been released with 99pc funds and they would be completed by the end of current financial year. Twenty-one schemes of Rs8.52bn had been given 56pc funds, 40 schemes of Rs5.14bn had been released with 68pc funds while 51 new schemes had been given only five per cent funds.

In the meetings various slow-paced schemes were identified on which the chief minister directed planning and development department and other departments concerned to expedite them and furnish reports to him in the follow-up meetings.

Published in Dawn, February 26th, 2020