A total of 255 watercourses will be strengthened and cemented in Sindh Province. This decision was taken in a meeting chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Dr Arbab Ghulam Rahim on Saturday. The meeting reviewed the pace of ongoing national programme to improve watercourses.
The meeting was told a total of 255 watercourses would be improved and cemented under the programme which would incur an estimated amount of Rs 430 million. Out of this amount, Rs 124 million would be spent on the improvement work of these watercourses while remaining amount of Rs 306 million would be spent on imparting related training, organising seminars, workshops etc.
The meeting was further informed according to revised estimates Rs 1180.261 million would be required to improve another 2539 watercourses.
The Chief Minister directed the concerned authorities to carry out improvement work at required pace and complete the project within stipulated time frame that the unnecessary water wastage could be checked immediately and the saved water be used for agriculture purposes.
The meeting was further informed in collaboration with the World Bank the Agriculture Department had to fill 4615 posts from grade-1 to grade-19 on contract basis for which applications had already been called. It was also mentioned the department also had 2140 vacancies in BPS-1 to BPS-4 and 2450 vacancies inn BPS-11 to BPS-19.
The meeting decided to fill all the vacant posts purely on merit in a transparent manner and constituted committees for this purpose. It was also decided to hire some reputed institution to conduct aptitude test.
The meeting was also attended by the Provincial Agriculture Minister Arif Mustafa Jatoi, Chief Secretary Sindh Muhammad Aslam Sunjrani, Secretary Agriculture Subhago Khan Jatoi, CM's Principal Secretary Muhammad Ayub Shaikh and Project Director Muhammad Younus Daga.