Sindh’s local government and public health engineering minister on Tuesday said the provincial government has earmarked Rs434 million to restore the reverse osmosis plant in Islamkot, and this allocation is not for any new development project.
Saeed Ghani said this while answering queries of lawmakers during the question hour of the provincial assembly session. He said the RO plant is a mega water filtration facility with the capacity to filter 1.5 million gallons a day. The plant has been non-functional due to various technical issues, he added.
Ghani said the Engro Corporation had asked the provincial government to sanction Rs1.4 billion to revive and operate the plant. The then cabinet had approved the grant but another assistance of Rs600 million, which was required to operate the plant for four years, could not be provided, he added.
He said that the former caretaker chief minister had formed a committee during his visit to Islamkot to evaluate the financial support required to restore the plant. The committee recommended in its report that the plant’s revival would be possible with Rs434 million, he added.
He also said he and the LG secretary had obtained a written undertaking from the committee comprising engineers that they could revive the plant for Rs434 million. The committee was assured that qualified staff will be deputed to operate the plant, whose operation will be free of any undue interference, he added.
Responding to a question, the minister said the public health engineering department (PHED) had recruited 109 people, adding that 86 per cent of these jobs had been filled under the quota reserved for the children of deceased employees, while the remaining were given to special persons in accordance with court orders.
Replying to another query, he said the areas served by the Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation and Hyderabad’s Water & Sanitation Agency are not included in the jurisdiction of the PHED.
The role and services of the PHED will be minimised further in the urban areas with the setting up of water & sanitation agencies in Sukkur, Nawabshah and Mirpurkhas, he added. He also said the PHED has no role in the under-construction K-IV bulk water supply project.
MRD martyrs
The PA unanimously passed a resolution to pay tribute to the martyrs of the Movement for the Restoration of Democracy (MRD) in the province who had laid down their lives in their peaceful struggle against the military regime in the 1980s to restore democracy in the country.
Pakistan Peoples Party’s (PPP) MPA Ghulam Qadir Chandio, who moved the resolution, said political activists part of the MRD had remained steadfast in their struggle to restore democratic dispensation in the country despite facing torture and imprisonment. He praised the PPP workers’ courage while striving to end the dictatorial regime.
Former CM Qaim Ali Shah said the PPP is a political force comprising daring workers and martyrs that has always waged a struggle for the supremacy of democracy in the country. Shah said the PPP’s leadership and activists demonstrated exemplary courage and steadfastness during their arbitrary imprisonment by the autocratic regime. Democracy was revived as a result of the PPP activists’ sacrifices, he added.
Ghani said the MRD had been launched to get rid of the tyrannical rule of the then military dictator. He lamented that the youth who are currently associated with the political process do not have any idea about the MRD’s importance.
He said that various political parties had joined hands with the PPP to form the MRD in 1983. The forging of the alliance shows that the PPP leadership had set aside their differences for the revival of democracy and the progress of the country, he added.
He recalled that many of the political parties that had become part of the MRD had earlier been together on the platform of the Pakistan National Alliance to wage a united movement in 1977 against PPP founder Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s government.
The LG minister said the MRD had been a countrywide movement but the struggle had a special emphasis in Sindh, and has now become an important part of Pakistan’s political history.
He said the MRD had gained salience among the peaceful movements of that era in South Asia. Peace-loving political activists and ordinary people had taken part in the MRD to get rid of the regime of an autocratic dictator, he added. He also said school curricula should include content on MRD so that the coming generations can learn of the sacrifices rendered by peaceful political activists to restore democracy in the country. He said the future generations should know about the struggle and sacrifices of every MRD martyr.