Pakistan People’s Party-led (PPP) government has launched a number of development projects to ‘save Sindh card’ in the province but bureaucracy has no idea how many programmes the ruling party has initiated in the province.
The PPP government launched Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Sasti Basti (BBSSB) schemes in all 23 districts of the province to fulfill one of its commitments of residential houses to the people for saving the Sindh card.
Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA) has been assigned to locate suitable land for this residential project. The authority, after surveys and field work, located land for 201 schemes across the province. The land was purchased from Board of Revenue (BoR) against billion of rupees to resettle the people of katchi abadis.
As per reports, President Asif Zardari directed the provincial government to resettle the people of katchi abadis who were living in Sindh before 1985 in govt’s leased lands. The project was handed over to SKAA and supervised by the then Sindh minister for katchi abadis and spatial development Rafique Engineer.
The engineer and his team worked hard and located land to launch 201 schemes in the province to enable PPP to save the Sindh card for good through such projects.
Summary of this project is as follows: 100 schemes in provincial capital Karachi, 30 in Hyderabad, 05 in Jamshoro, 05 in Tando Muhammad Khan, 01 in Matiari, 01 in Tando Allahyar, 05 in Badin, 05 in Thatta, 05 in Dadu, 10 in Mirpurkhas, 05 in Sanghar, 01 in Umerkot, 01 in Tharparkar, 05 in Sukkur, 02 in Ghotki, 04 in Khairpur, 05 in Nawabshah, 05 in Naushero Feroze, 03 in Larkana, 01Kamber, Shahdadkot, 01 in Jacobabad, 01 in Kashmore and two schemes in Shikarpur.
Sources in SKAA told Pakistan Today that government purchased huge land from the BoR against billion of rupees which was identified by the authority for 201 schemes to provide lease land to the people of Sindh for building their houses. “However, the government has allocated the lease land to the people at some districts but a number of projects in other districts of the province could not be launched,” they added.
For Karachi, Thatta and Jacobabad, the authority has selected prime land of the three districts but the said land was occupied by land grabbers and neither the government nor bureaucracy was aware of it,” the sources disclosed.
When approached for comments, SKAA Director General Wahab Sheikh said he had no idea about any such project in Sindh. “I don’t know SKAA is running any project with the name of slain PPP leader Benazir Bhutto,” he added.
“I do not recall that who launched this scheme when and where,” the DG claimed.
“Kindly contact the head of department concerned to seek comments on this project,” he said.
