KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah left for China where he would attend the CPEC Joint Coordination Committee (JCC) meeting scheduled for Thursday in Beijing.

The meeting participants would review progress made so far to implement approved projects of the economic corridor.

The chief minister besides taking up the approved Sindh projects in CPEC in its sixth meeting held in 2016 pertaining to Karachi Circular Railway, Dhabeji Special Economic Zone and Keti Bandar, would also present the case for including Canal lining project from Guddu to Sukkur Barrage, low-delta agriculture crops, Green Sindh project for improving environment through massive plantation from Karachi to Kashmore and installation of mega desalination plant in Karachi.

Sources told Dawn the canal lining project had a lot of importance for Sindh.

Seepage is one of the factors that lead to approximately 30 to 40 per cent loss of irrigation water in canals.

Applying the right irrigation canal lining would help minimise the impact of seepage.

The canal lining is the impermeable layer applied at the sides and at the bed of the canal to boost its discharge capacity and life.

Sindh could also learn a lot from Chinese experience by cultivating low-delta crops in which China had made tremendous progress by getting more yield with the use of less water. The Chinese cooperation would give boost to the agriculture products, if the project is included in CPEC.

Forests in Sindh have also been degraded to a significant degree.

A report by the forest and wildlife secretary reveals that there has been an 80pc decline in the actual forest cover since 1971 and the present forest size is of 100,000 acres, which is less than 0.3pc of the entire surface area.

In the present circumstances, there is a strong need to formulate a dynamic policy for tree plantation to revive the ecosystem.

Similarly Karachi gets only 450 million gallons per day (MGDs) against its requirement of 1,200 MGDs.

A majority of the city residents are using groundwater, which is contaminated and groundwater reserves will be depleted soon if Karachi’s residents kept on extracting it. “In such a condition, Karachi can only get water through desalination.”

At the sixth meeting pleading the case for the KCR, the chief minister had drawn attention towards importance of Karachi and its transportation problems. He had said the solution of traffic problem lay in effective mass transit system, which included revival of KCR, Bus Rapid Transit System (BRTS) and Light Rail Transit.

The JCC decided to include the project and asked the Sindh government to present its feasibility within next three months.

The chief minister said construction of new jetty at Keti Bandar would also exploit full potential of Thar coal reserves.

It would minimise cost of electricity produced from Thar coal.

He requested the JCC to approve the project in principle as discussed in the Transport Infrastructure Joint Working Group in November 2016.

He vowed to present detailed bankable feasibility in the next working group meeting. The JCC included the Keti Bandar Power Park and Seaport project in CPEC and decided to conduct feasibility study.

The chief minister pleaded the case for Dhabeji Special Economic Zone.

The JCC decided to give a Special Economic Zone to every province, including Sindh.

Published in Dawn, December 20th, 2018