ISLAMABAD, Oct 11: The government approved on Saturday 47 projects and revised 18 schemes, including the Karachi’s Lyari Expressway Resettlement project.

A meeting of the Central Development Working Party presided over by Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Salman Faruqi approved the projects costing Rs50.1 billion, including foreign exchange component of Rs5.8 billion.

This was the second meeting of the CDWP during the current fiscal year. Last month it approved 42 new projects worth Rs237.7 billion.

Of the 47 projects, 25 pertain to infrastructure, 18 to social sector and four to other sectors.

The revised projects mainly relate to the education sector. The Lyari project will help resettle the families displaced by the construction of the expressway.

In the road sector, 18 projects were approved to provide modern and safe travel facilities to the general public. The authorities of the Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) were asked to seek expression of interest from private firms to finance these projects, including Hasanabdal-Havailian-Mansehra Expressway.

In the water sector, the PC-II has been approved to undertake engineering design and tender documents of the Munda Dam project which will generate 748MW electricity and irrigate 23,000 acres of land.

In the education sector, it was decided that a college of home economics and management sciences would be established in Islamabad. Similarly, a project has been approved for development of university faculty.

The CDWP conceptually approved the upgradation of training equipment of the Pakistan Marine Academy project.

The meeting was attended by the representatives of provincial governments and special areas were represented by the respective additional chief secretaries (development).

The IPDF and the Board of Investment have been made permanent members of the CDWP to solicit their views as to which project could be shifted to the public-private partnership sector.