KARACHI: Rs1.7bn projects for Karachi announced: City Council meets
“We are initiating projects for improvement in the city’s infrastructure in a shortest possible time. For improvement of water and sewerage lines, an amount of Rs 4 billion has been allocated while Rs 2.5 billion would be spent for construction of underpasses and bridges and reinforcement and improvement of existing roads.”
He said work had been started on projects worth over Rs 9 billion and these developmental projects would be completed within one or two years, while within one year, people would start witnessing a positive change, Mustafa Kamal asserted.
The nazim said after our parlays with international donor agencies spanning over three months, they have agreed to invest in the city.
For improvement of city’s infrastructure, a mega-city project had been conceived on which Rs 24.78 billion would be spent and the project would be assisted by the Asian Developmental Bank and is expected to be formally signed in the next few days, the city nazim said.
Speaking about his policy statement before the council session, the nazim said he has divided his action plan into short term and long term programmes.
The short term plans would deal with issues requiring urgent attention, such as water and sanitation problems, clean drinking water, and quality education, whereas long term plans comprise master plan for the city, mass transit programme, Karachi Circular Railway, major flyovers and signal-free thoroughfares.
Syed Mustafa Kamal said that the Karachi Water and Sewerage Board was responsible for correcting, improving and modernizing the water supply and sewerage disposal system in every part of the city.
He said that in order to provide relief to industrial areas, he had announced a Rs 2 billion uplift package for their uplift and initiated work on it in just 15 days.
He said that people were facing with immense problems in transport sector. He said he was proud that just after two and half months of his being sworn-in, he gave Karachiites an uplift package of Rs2.5 billion.
He said roads were being repaired and improved with a huge cost. He said that he had decided that in future a prize would be awarded to those firms completing their future projects six months before schedule.
He said that the initial work on Mass Transit Plan had been completed and work on its first phase would be kicked off in June 2006 and the first train for it would reach Karachi by 2007.
He said that work was also in progress on circular railway. He said that a multi-storied car-parking project was also in the offing.
Pointing out the decaying condition of the healthcare system under the CDGK, he said things were being improved, saying that within next six months the Abbassi Shaheed Hospital would be made an exemplary medical care centre of the city.
He said that purchase of medicine worth Rs 180 million had been approved. He said that to check the pilferage of the medicines, medicines of different colours would be purchased for the CDGK hospitals, so that they could not be sold in the open market.
MODEL SCHOOLS: Referring to the education system, the nazim said a project of “model schools” with the assistance of the private sector would be launched in each town.
Under the programme, uniforms, books, computer labs, building and teachers training would be provided by the CDGK with the assistance of the private sector.
If proved successful, the plan would be implemented in rest of the schools, he said.
He said that the city generates 8000 tonnes of garbage per day out of which only 4000 tonnes is lifted. He said that the private sector would carry out solid waste management job in Karachi from Feb 15.
He said that for road-cleaning, modern machinery worth Rs560 million had been imported from Germany and it had reached the Karachi Port.
He said 100 new spray machines had been purchased which would be soon handed to towns. He pointed out that under new arrangement, road cleaning work would be carried during the night.
Earlier, speaking on a point of order, the leader of the united opposition, Saeed Ghani spoke about certain shortcomings, like going ahead with the new projects, such as privatization of solid wastage management system without bringing the projects before the council.
Another irregularity, he said that even before their election, the pictures of naib nazims of several towns were placed in certain advertisements.
Saeed Ghani deplored that despite being the leader of the opposition, he was not invited to the oath-taking ceremony of the naib nazim of the city district government Karachi.
Saeed Ghani demanded that Rs 64 lakh meant for development funds for each UC be issued to the respective union councils as done by the previous city nazim.
Later speaking to newsmen, Mustafa Kamal said that if the city council approves Rs 64 lakh as development fund for UCs he would have no objection over it, though earlier he had termed the allocation of this fund illegal, saying that under the SLGO, there was no provision for this allocation.
Earlier, speaking on the occasion, naib nazima Nasreen Jalil, who conducted the proceedings of the first council session, assured that she would make no distinction between the treasury and opposition benches, and hoped that the council would extend full support to the city nazim in the greater interest of the city.