KARACHI, Sept 12: The bureaucratic wrangling that had been blocking progress on yet another mega project - Education City - in Karachi seems to have been losing strength with the initiative , taken by the provincial Chief Secretary Aslam Sanjrani, of undertaking the procedural matters.

When materialized, the Education City would become 'pride of Karachi' giving the metropolis a distinction among all cities of Pakistan, as well as South Asia, of having such a unique township.

Mr Sanjrani has directed the city government to prepare a map indicating the exact boundaries of the project site, categories of allotments, lease period, roads, amenity plots, etc., in order to kick off physical development on the project.

The decision to develop the strip of land linking National Highway and Super Highway into the Education City had been taken by the Sindh cabinet on October 16, 2001. Accordingly, some prestigious institutions had been allotted lands under the plan.

The project, as visualized originally, would be spread over an area of 8,000 acres of Deh Chuhar, located between the two highways. A few weeks back, City Nazim Naimatullah Khan had reviewed the project at a meeting to discuss how would the Education City help promote higher education and research at national level. The nazim had directed concerned officials to expedite the process of demarcation and notify the necessary information to give the idea a practical shape.

The nazim had also asked the EDO (Revenue) to prepare a working paper in consultation with representatives of the interested institutions that had also acquired land in the project. The EDO (Master Plan) was asked to accelerate the process of planning in respect of bylaws, demarcation and master planning.

Finally, the chief secretary convened a meeting last week with the representatives of stakeholders in his office and took certain decisions to remove the barriers in the way of the implementation of the Sindh government's decision on the Education City.

According to insiders, the meeting also took the decision that in addition to educational and health institutions, there would be provisions in the Education City for allied amenities, like bus termini, hotels, petrol stations, etc.

The stakeholders had urged the authorities to notify the project site in Deh Chuhar as specifically for the Education City so that landgrabber could not encroach upon the lands they had acquired for the purpose.

The stakeholders included the Aga Khan University, Sir Syed University, Shaheed Zulfikar Ali Bhutto Institute and Ziauddin Medical University. The DCO Karachi, EDO (Revenue) and DS Board of Revenue were among the officials who had attended the meeting.

It was observed during the meeting that there was no precedence of notifying an area for a specific purpose except for the schemes sponsored by government. However, the meeting decided that some sort of measures would be taken to allay the stakeholders' apprehensions.