June 11, 2008	Wednesday	Jamadi-us-Sani 06, 1429

KARACHI, June 10: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that the government is finalising a plan to provide shelter to homeless people.

Chairing a high-level meeting held to review the Sindh housing programme at the Chief Minister’s House, he said the federal government had announced that some one million houses would be constructed every year for homeless people in the country.

He said that the provincial government chalked out a strategy to implement this programme on a permanent basis. In this regard, he said, a proposal for the establishment of the Sindh Housing Authority was under consideration. The authority would implement the prime minister’s programme for the homeless.

He said that hundreds of thousands people were homeless in the province and informed the meeting that every year one hundred thousand houses would be built and given to the destitute people in Sindh.

He recalled the housing schemes introduced in Landhi-Korangi in the 60s and KDA schemes in the 70s and said the present government would construct low-cost houses in Keti Bandar and Kharo Chhaan areas as a model project that would be replicated in other towns at a later stage.

The chief minister said that a transparent system would be adopted to prepare the lists of homeless people and ensure that the allottees did not sell off the houses.

The chief minister, meanwhile, announced that over 225,000 acres would be distributed soon among landless farmers, preferably to the female peasants, under land grant policy of the government.

While chairing a meeting to review the ban imposed on grant of state land among haris in accordance with land grant policies and statement of conditions, held at the Chief Minister’s House on Monday, he hinted at the launch of such programme by PPP co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari in the third week of July.

Under the proposed policy, he said, besides the allotment of land, incentives like seeds, pesticides, land levelling, watercourses and micro-credit facilities would also be provided to farmers. He said that 13,300 families or over 100,000 persons would benefit under the land distribution programme.

Earlier, Mohammad Siddique Memon, a member of the revenue board’s land utilisation department, briefed the meeting about priority and procedure of allotment of land to peasants. He said all allotments would be made in public meetings. He further said micro-credit facilities would be provided for the development of land together with provision of seeds, pesticides, tillage, levelling, watercourses, while funding for tube-wells to the group of farmers having contiguous land above 100 acres.

It was informed that a provincial coordination/monitoring committee, to be headed by the provincial revenue minister, would be formed. Senior member of the BoR would be the convener, while land utilisation secretary would act as committee’s secretary. An MNA, two MPAs, provincial secretaries for irrigation and power, agriculture, representatives of Zarai Taraqiati Bank Ltd and the EDOs (revenue) of respective district would be members of the committee.

Besides, district coordination/monitoring committees will be formed, headed by the DCO who would act as convener, while one MNA and two MPAs, EDO (revenue), EDO (agriculture), XEN irrigation concerned, will be the members.

The meeting was attended by Sindh Revenue Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah, chief secretary Fazlur Rehman, senior member of the revenue board Anwar Haider, additional chief secretary (planning and development) Nazar Hussain Mahar, secretary finance Ghulam Ali Pasha and others.—Agencies

Rs4bn youth programme

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, meanwhile, announced that the Sindh government had finalised a plan to launch Rs4 billion “Benazir Bhutto Shaheed Youth Development Programme” in the next month, adds our staff reporter.

Under the programme, he said, a hundred thousand unskilled educated youths would be imparted training in 44 different trades and different courses ranging from one month to one year in public and private sector institutions. He said that every selected youth would be given a monthly stipend of Rs4,000.