Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Tuesday approved the Rs72.5 billion poverty reduction strategy with a focus on education, health, water and sanitation and development of internal village roads.
He made this decision, presiding over a cabinet meeting at 7th floor of the New Sindh Secretariat. All the provincial ministers, advisers and the special assistants who were invited specially, attended the meeting.
The Planning and Development with the assistance of EU after a hectic and two-year long survey and study, has prepared a poverty reduction strategy under which rural and urban poverty would be reduced by making necessary arrangements and required schemes to upgrade villages.
The villages will be given internal roads, water supply and drainage schemes, health facilities, vocational training and top of it a holistic approach would be made to improve quality of education.
The chief minister said the programme would begin all over Sindh. He said rural and urban poverty would be reduced by investing Rs72.5 billion during the next five years and this would be additional allocations to the already launched poverty reduction programmes and initiatives.
RBCs: The cabinet was told that with the assistance of the German Development Bank, four state-of-the-art regional blood centres (RBCs) have been constructed at Sukkur, Jamshoro, Shaheed Benazirabad and Karachi.
Sindh Health Minister Dr Azra Pechuho said the health department had no prior experience of managing the sophisticated blood centres; therefore, experienced private sector organizations may be awarded contracts under PPP mode.
After the health department's prsentation, the cabinet approved to award contracts of RBC Jamshoro to Indus Hospital, RBC Sukkur to Sukkur Blood and Drug Donating Society, RBC Shaheedabad to Fatmid Foundation and RBC Karachi to Ziauddin Hospital.
PHE: Secretary Public Engineering department Syed Jamal Shah gave a presentation to the cabinet. He said that in the light of Supreme Court of Pakistan's judgement they had prepared an action plan. The plan calls for transferring all the functions relating to water, sewerage schemes, including installation, operation and management of RO plants to Public Health Engineering department.
The cabinet approved transferring of all the concerned staff of local government to PHE department. Under the plan 1572 schemes would be operated and the salaries of the staff would be Rs642 million. The cabinet approved the plan and directed chief secretary to implement it. The cabinet also approved Rs500 million for transaction and placed at the disposal of the secretary PHED.
Forest: With the approval of the chief minister, Additional Chief Secretary Forest & Wildlife Sohail Akbar Shah presented a restructuring plan of his department. The cabinet approved the proposed restructuring. Under the plan two grade-20 posts of chief conservators of Forests (CCF) have been created: (a) CCF Mangroves & Rangelands to look after the mangroves ecosystem and development projects of the department especially Green Pakistan programme; (b)CCF Social Forestry to look after the social forestry wing of the department.
Four grade-19 positions of conservators of forest (CF) have also been created to adequately support the CCFs. He said that productive forests which include riverise and irrigated plantation spread over an area of 0.800 million acres. Similarly, Protective Forests which include mangroves and rangelands cover an area of 2.5 million acres. In this way our forests speared over an area of 3.3 million acres which constitute 8 percent of total land area of Sindh. "Therefore, restructuring of the department was vital to look after these forests and improve them further," the secretary said. The cabinet approved the plan.
The chief minister said the provincial government has received an email from Guinness book for establishing a record of planting mangroves.
Fake number plates: Taking serious note of using government number plates on private vehicles, Sindh Chief Minister ordered a drive against the culprits. He said he has seen that some people are using fake government number plates on their private vehicles, unregistered vehicles and vehicles taken from Nazarat. He said it unacceptable and ordered Excise Minister Mukesh Kumar Chawla to launch special campaign against them and report him.
SPPRA Rules: The Sindh Public Procurement Regulatory Authority (SPPRA) proposed some 30 amendments to their rules. The chief minister formed a committee under his Adviser on Law, Murtaza Wahab, with General Administration secretary and another secretary as members to review the amendments and present the same in the next cabinet meeting.
Women protection against harassment: The Women Development department presented an Act called "Sindh Protection Against Harassment of Women at the workplace Act 2018. Secretary Women Development department Baqaullah Unar gave a presentation to the cabinet. The purpose of the bill is to make provision for the protection against harassment of women at the workplace and address their issues through legal framework.