KARACHI: The Sindh government is considering constructing ‘plastic roads’ in the metropolis and the caretaker chief minister has directed the authorities to explore the viability of the concept, it emerged on Saturday.

A few months ago, an oil marketing company had introduced the first plastic-infused road in the metropolis by recycling over 2.5 tonnes of discarded lubricant plastic bottles for the construction of a 730-foot-long and 60-foot-wide road.

Thousands of tonnes of solid waste is collected daily in the city by the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board. It has two plants for converting five tonnes of kitchen waste into fertilizer and as many tonnes plastic waste to recycled raw plastic on a daily basis.

The matter was discussed at a meeting of the works and services department, where caretaker Chief Minister retired Justice Maqbool Baqar reviewed the development portfolio of the department.

Interim CM asks officials to conduct in-depth study

He said that most of the countries had started constructing plastic roads and there was a need of the same in the metropolis.

He directed the department to conduct a thorough study on the matter and submit its recommendation for necessary action.

The works secretary briefed the CM about the progress of inspections he conducted in various districts of Sindh.

He also showed the CM a new inspection proforma, and its parameters developed by the department. The CM directed the department to add a new column in the inspection report proforma to reflect the ‘causes and details about the revision of the scheme/project’.

The CM also directed the works department to include a column in the inspection proforma about the performance of the contractor and officers involved in that project.

‘Zero tolerance for substandard work’

He directed the works dept to take stern departmental action against delinquent officers involved in corrupt practices and causing poor work of different development projects.

He categorically said that there would be zero tolerance for substandard work and those involved must be taken to the task.

The CM was also briefed about a government manual and mandate assigned to various field formations/offices of the department.

He said that for every major development project, there should be digital recordings, images, or videos at every stage of the project. “The recorded data can be stored in the archives in the shape of DVDs or in USB form,” he said.

The secretary briefed the CM about his field visits to inspect the development schemes of road and buildings sectors of districts Badin, Tharparkar, Umerkot, Tando Muhammad Khan, Tando Allahyar, Matiari, Hyderabad and Sanghar.

To a question, he informed the CM that his observations during the visit to the schemes included that no milestone was installed on the completed scheme, quality of roads, particularly in Sanghar, was not good, bridges almost in all schemes were not been attended properly, shoulders of most of the schemes were not compacted properly, visits were not carried out by the engineers concerned and record of completed schemes was not readily available on the site.

Justice Baqar directed the maintenance of proper logbooks of official vehicles where all the necessary information must be included.

He said that road safety research programmes, especially on Indus Highway, should be launched.

Justice Baqar also directed the works secretary to conduct a third-party audit of all the taxes collected at various provincial highways, except those projects running on public-private-partnership mode, because in most cases these toll taxes were not reflected in non-tax revenue receipts.

Published in Dawn, October 22th, 2023