LARKANA, June 8: Sindh Law Minister Ayaz Soomro said on Sunday that a bill would be tabled at the post-budget session of the Sindh assembly to regularise the service of contract employees working for three years or more in different departments of the provincial government.

Talking to journalists, the minister said that the service of SDMs, DSPs, doctors, sub-engineers working in the water board and lecturers would also be regularised through the bill.

He claimed that the government had successfully moved and passed within three months three bills, including one transferring powers about Sindh Pubic Service Commission from the governor to the chief minister,.

The government had asked the provincial chief secretary to prepare a blueprint of powers that had been vested in the governor after making amendments to 1973’s Constitution so that they could be studied and placed before the assembly for vetting and passing after seeking members’ suggestions, he said.

He indicated that the bills to raise the status of Chandka Medical College Larkana and Nawabshah Medical College to universities were ready and would be presented before lawmakers during the post-budget session of Sindh Assembly.

To a question, he said that any move to annex Karachi Civil Hospital with Dow University of Health Sciences would be opposed. He, however, was not aware of any summery about it being drafted and moved, he said.

The minister said that the government had approved a plan for establishing two power stations, which would use coal from the Thar coal reserves. India had established power plants in Rajasthan exploiting coal reserves in the desert area then why Sindh could not do so, he stressed.

About Gorakh Hill Station project, he said that the government was quite serious to develop the area and it had initially planned to build a double carriageway road and allot land on both sides of the road for construction of houses, he said.

Mr Soomro said that Sindh had suffered greatly under the dictatorial rule and the areas which could have been developed into recreational resorts were totally ignored.

He said that the government had in principle decided to regularise the localities, which were at least 15 years old. After survey of such localities had been completed, a bill would be passed by the Sindh Assembly to regularise them, he said.

He said that four dehs of NA-207 constituency, Naon Kinaro, Salar, Shadi Abro and Nazar Detho, which had been annexed with Garhi Yasin by the previous government with an intention to dent PPP’s electorate, had again been made the part of NA-207 through chief minister’s orders.

Two other dehs, Gosargi and Deha, which were detached from Shikarpur and added to New Sukkur had again been added to in Shikarpur, he said.

He said that work on a proposed lawyers colony in Larkana for which the prime minister had announced Rs100 million grant would soon be started and houses for the poor measuring 240 yards each would be constructed in Ratodero and Larkana.

He said that the chief minister had formed a two-member committee comprising information minister and law minister for holding elections of Larkana Press Club, which had not elected its office-bearers for six years.

A five-member committee headed by Director Information S. Iqbal Babu, Sabir Shah, Zaffar Abro, Abdul Jabbar Baloch and Naveed Larik would hold the elections, he said.