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| October 9, 2001 | Tuesday | Rajab 21, 1422 |
Fate of LDA hangs in balance
LARKANA, Oct 8: The fate of Larkana Development Authority (LDA), established in 1994, hangs in balance after the introduction of district government plan.
The Sindh Assembly during the PPP government passed an Act No. XXI of 1994 through which the LDA was assigned the job of development, improvement and beautification of urban areas of the then Larkana division.
The authority had experienced ups and downs with the change of governments though at its inception 27-development schemes were awarded to it with the allocation of Rs300.111 million.
It could hardly spent Rs187.300 million up to November 1996 while the rest of the amount to the tune of Rs 108.370 million were frozen, sources said.
Subsequently six schemes of People’s Programme had been dropped from the schedule.
A stage arrived when the first director general of the LDA was sent behind bars and the caretaker government of Mumtaz Ali Bhutto launched a probe.
This trauma has not only weakened the LDA but due to acute shortage of staff it could not grow and flourish.
Again the Sindh finance department released Rs36.652 million to undertake 10 development schemes in April, 2000 and by June, 30,2000 and Rs4.543 million were spent on the schemes.
Finally the development works came to halt when rest of the funds were lapsed.
Once again in August,2000 after re-validation of Rs31.677 million, the LDA earmarked Rs30.00 million to complete the remaining work of the Circular Road.
The changes in government had a direct impact on the LDA and that was why it had failed to evolve its plan of development for fund-generation to keep the wheel moving. And always the staff had been stuffed from different departments to run it.
Now the new system is in and in the light of new local government ordinance the powers to deal with the building control rests with the taluka officer.
But the LDA still continues this practice and its director general hardly visits office for one week in a month, the sources told this scribe.
The DG LDA sits in Lahore and the staff is waiting to receive regular salary, the sources said.
The confusion exists whether the authority has been put under the control of district government or not.
An official told this correspondent on Monday the authority had seized to exist following the promulgation of new ordinance.
The works assigned to it should be decentralized even to taluka level but the LDA was still working without any direction, he added.
When the subject of building control rests with taluka officer why the LDA continues to deal with it, is a big question.
Lately it has been learnt the District Coordination Officer (DCO), Larkana, Mohammed Hashim Memon, had written to the Sindh government for early clarification regarding the LDA. The LDA was meant for the entire division but now the divisions are no more so the the fate of LDA should be decided at earliest.
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