Many roads, govt buildings in urgent need of repairs, says minister

Published April 11, 2015
PML-F legislator Nusrat Sehar Abbasi speaks during the Sindh Assembly session on Friday.—Online
PML-F legislator Nusrat Sehar Abbasi speaks during the Sindh Assembly session on Friday.—Online

KARACHI: Many roads and buildings in the province have been in a shambles and in urgent need of repairs because the government has not released funds for their maintenance over the past three years, according to Sindh Minister for Works and Services Mir Hazar Khan Bijarani.

The minister was responding to questions by legislators during the question hour about his portfolio at the Sindh Assembly on Friday. The assembly session presided over by Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani began late as usual, about 50 minutes behind the scheduled time of 10am.

Pakistan Muslim League-Functional legislator Dr Rafique Banbhan informed the house about poor condition of the Sindh House building in Islamabad. The minister agreed with him and said that the chief minister had been briefed on the crumbling edifice and it would be fully renovated as soon as funds were released.

The speaker also joined his voice to legislators’ call for renovating the Sindh House and then added in a tone that betrayed an imperceptible sense of deprivation that the governor and the chief minister both had separate annexes in the Sindh House but the speaker had none.

He said that he had to stay in ordinary rooms whenever he went to Islamabad and said the department should look into it if it was possible to make a provision for an exclusive space for the speaker as well.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement lawmaker Saleem Rajput asked if the Sindh House staff were Sindh domiciled. The minister said majority of low-ranking employees having the Sindh domicile did not want to go to Islamabad, so many of the 97 employees posted there were hired from Islamabad.

He agreed with legislators that many officials had been occupying rooms in the Sindh House Islamabad for a long time but now the policy had been changed and nobody could put up in a room for more than a month. The rent policy had also been changed with the rent increasing every week after the first week of stay in order to discourage long occupancy, he said.

He agreed with legislators and the speaker that the Sindh House in Murree was also in a poor shape and needed urgent repairs.

PML-F legislator Saeed Niza­mani drew the attention of the house to delay in start of work on the Mirpurkhas–Sanghar–Nawab­shah road and the minister said that since the road was being built with foreign investment, completion of formalities was taking more time than usual. The work would, however, start soon, he said.

He concurred with the legislator that condition of roads in Sanghar district was the worst in the province and said when the funds were released the roads would be repaired.

PML-F’s Nusrat Sehar Abbasi asked why Dost Ali road to Miran Machi in Qambar-Shahdadkot had not been repaired now or over the past five years of the PPP government when the portfolio was held by Manzoor Wassan.

Mr Bijarani repeated the same reply that repairs would be carried out as and when funds were released.

In response to another question by her about use of substandard material in bridges in Khairpur, one of which collapsed and killed a child recently, Mr Bijarani passed the blame to contractors and said even a bridge in Karachi collapsed within days of being inaugurated.

Mr Wassan rose to clear his position when his name was mentioned and said that he held the portfolio only for three years before heavy rains and floods hit the province. Before him, the portfolio was held for many years by PML-F president Sadruddin Shah Rashdi and present Pir Pagara Sibghatullah Shah Rashdi. Ms Abbasi had better ask them why they always coveted this department and how repairs work had been done during their tenure, he said.

PML-F legislators protested over Mr Wassan’s mentioning their leaders but he continued.

Mr Bijarani replied to another question by Mr Rajput about unfinished overhead bridge at Thehri Phatak and said that it had been delayed because of objections by railways but almost 86 per cent of the work had been done and the rest would be completed soon.

Ms Abbasi asked about progress on Luqman Bridge in Khairpur and he answered the bridge was almost complete and now its carpeting was in progress.

MQM legislator Waqar Shah said the cost of the bridge was Rs678 million but Rs705 million had already been spent on it despite the fact much work still remained to be done. The remaining work would cost another Rs22 million and would be completed within next couple of months, said the minister.

Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf legislator Khurram Sherzaman said that he had learnt from contractors that almost 40 per cent of the development scheme budget went into commissions.

The minister said he had zero tolerance for corruption and he had himself referred many cases of corrupt officials to anticorruption establishment as well as the National Accountability Bureau, he said.

Published in Dawn, April 11th, 2015

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