May 07, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-ul-Awwal 1, 1429

KARACHI, May 6: The construction of an additional block of the Sindh Assembly building is not likely to take off soon due to financial constraints.

The project, whose cost was estimated at over Rs600 million at the time of its foundation-stone laying on Aug 31, 2007, was initially conceived in 1991 to preserve the historical Sindh Assembly Building, which had been declared a national heritage building as it was the building where for the first time the Pakistan Resolution was passed and after independence the document for the transfer of power from the British to Quaid-i-Azam Mohammad Ali Jinnah was signed by Governor-General Lord Mountbatten.

Sindh Assembly Speaker Nisar Ahmad Khuhro, who was given a briefing on the new assembly project on Tuesday, told Dawn that there was no fund in the current budget for the project. Besides, there was a need to reconstitute a committee and appoint its project director for its supervision.

He said he would see to it that sufficient funds were allocated in the next budget so that the project could take off and be completed soon.

In the present assembly hall, which was originally built to house 62 members and later with the increased number of its members in 2002, its capacity was expanded to 168, resulting in congestion of the seating arrangements.

In the new project there would be a provision to house 350 members in addition to the enhanced capacity in the press, governor’s, visitors and women’s galleries.

Mr Khuhro advised the building consultants of the project to ensure the provision of chambers in the building for chairmen of various standing and special committees, whose present strength is 23.

After the briefing the speaker also visited the MPAs’ hostel, which has a provision for 42 members only. He asked the consultant to prepare a design to build a multi- storey hostel in place of the old barracks, adjacent to the present MPAs hostel, where over 200 MPAs could be accommodated.