KARACHI: The Rs487 million contract for the rehabilitation of the 18th century Sadhu Belo temple in Sukkur which has fallen into decay over the decades will be cancelled because of unnecessary delay and unsatisfactory performance by the contractor, said Sindh Minister for Minorities Affairs Gayanchand Israni.

The work on the temple established by Swami Brakhandi Maharaj on an island in the River Indus between the towns of Sukkur and Rohri in 1823 was not being done properly, though the contractor had been given Rs116 million in advance.

The government, therefore, launched an inquiry which found the contractor and a government official overseeing the project guilty of delinquency and malpractice.

The official had since been suspended as the government launched more inquiries into the issue, he said.

The minister was responding to questions by Pakistan Muslim League-Functional legislator Nusrat Sehar Abbasi about Sadhu Belo and other legislators during the Question Hour about the minorities’ affairs department in the Sindh Assembly on Thursday.

The session was presided over by Speaker Agha Siraj Durrani and it began over an hour and 20 minutes late.

As soon as he took over the department, he launched an inquiry after witnessing that despite payment in advance the work on the project had not been done.

He stopped release of another instalment of Rs83 million allocated for the current year, which had now been transferred to next year’s budget, he said.

Since the contractor had almost completed the work of Rs116 million he had been given, the contract would now be cancelled on account of delay and unsatisfactory performance and would be tendered again soon, he said.

He said that senior official executive engineer Mohammad Ali Makhdoom had been suspended and stern action would be taken against all those found guilty of delinquency by several inquiries being conducted into the issue.

Ms Abbasi had complained the work on the Sadhu Belo project was not being implemented properly by the contractor.

The minister said in response to another question by her that the contract was awarded to M.P. Construction Company in 2012 when PPP’s Dr Mohanlal Kohistani was minister.

The speaker asked Mr Israni as well as anti-corruption minister Manzoor Wassan to expedite inquiries so that action could be taken against the culprits.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement legislator Moin Pirzada asked if the government maintained quota for minorities in recruitments, the minister said that not only the quota was maintained but in some cases even more recruitments were made than the quota.

Senior Education Minister Nisar Ahmed Khuhro explained the quotas had been fixed so as to benefit the disadvantaged groups like minorities, women, physically challenged, etc.

MQM’s Irum Farooque and her colleagues opposed the quota system, particularly the urban-rural quota, and called for its abolition but the speaker dismissed their demand saying the issue was not relevant to the main question.

MQM legislators Heer Soho, Zubair Khan, Saleem Rajput, PML-N’s Sorath Thebo, Mahtab Akbar Rashdi of the PML-F, PPP minister Sharjeel Memon and others also spoke.

Published in Dawn, May 22nd, 2015

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