THATTA: Master plan being prepared for coastal zones
By Our Correspondent
THATTA, Sept 7: An integrated coastal zone management master plan for coastal areas of Sindh has been under preparation at a cost of Rs48.84 million. This was stated by Simon Tiller, leader of the Asian Development Bank’s technical assistance team, and Munawar Open, Director General of the Coastal Development Authority, to district government officials and NGO representatives at the Makli Darbar Hall on Wednesday.
They said that the ADB would provide a grant of Rs39 million with the cooperation of major stakeholders and the project will be completed by March 2006. They revealed that the World Bank had also showed interest in the Sindh coastal zone project, “Supporting vulnerable communities in Thatta and Badin districts” and would provide 13.5 million US dollars for it.
Investments in the projects would be identified on the basis of subject feasibility, policy and institution, natural resources, coastal resources’ management, coastal fisheries infrastructure, alternative energy, oil seed crop, mangroves and marine fisheries, they said.
The committed amount by the ADB was Rs3 billion for the year 2006, they said.
They disclosed that the CDA’s current implementing projects were worth Rs279 million, including rehabilitation and propagation of the drought affected coastal mangroves of Thatta district, planting of salt resistant trees at the coastal zone, improvement of livestock and shrimp breeding, designing Shah Bunder Jetty, preparation of feasibility report for development of recreation centres in the coastal areas of Thatta and Badin districts, and oil palm plantation on 1,000 acres at four locations in Thatta.
The team, accompanied by Thatta DCO Usman Panhwar, and the divisional forest officer, Sadiq Mughal, visited various sites of the coastal belt.
