KARACHI, June 6: The Sindh Minister for Local Government, Industries, Labour, Transport, Housing & Town planning, Dewan Mohammed Yousuf Farooqui, presided over on Thursday a meeting of heads of provincial government departments to review the progress of devolution process and development schemes.

Discussing ways and means for devolving the rest of the provincial departments in the light of the decisions taken in the Sindh cabinet meeting on Tuesday, the minister called the provincial transition wing‘s meeting on June 19. He asked the officials to expedite the process of devolution of the Karachi Building Control Authority, Housing & Town Planning Department, Karachi Water & Sewerage Board, etc, up to Town level as the government had set June 30 as the deadline for accomplishment of this task.

The meeting also discussed revival of the Karachi Circular Railway, the proposed investment conference to be held in Beijing in August and other matters.

The managing director of the Sindh Industrial & Trading Estate briefed the minister on various development schemes that included construction of roads, improvement of water supply, laying of pipelines for supplying 4mgd water to industrial units, cleaning of drains, installation of street-lights, provision of gas to the Nooriabad Industrial Area, development schemes under way at Kotri, Hyderabad and Sukkur industrial areas.

The minister asked the officials that development schemes for the next fiscal year be prepared keeping in view the basic needs of the people, especially those belonging to the low-income groups.

Secretary local government Major Qamar Zaman (retd), secretary industries, labour and transport Raja Mohammed Abbas, secretary housing & town planning Qazi Aijaz, secretary mines & mineral development Aslam Sanjrani and other officials attended the meeting.

— PPI