KARACHI: Sindh Energy Minister Imtiaz Ahmed Shaikh has said the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre (JPMC) is being solarised with the assistance of the World Bank (WB).

He was talking with reporters after a visit to the JPMC, along with WB country director in Pakistan Najy Benhassine, paid to review the ongoing solarisation work of the hospital the other day.

He said that under the ‘Sindh Solar Energy Project’, a solar system was being installed at the rooftop of the JPMC building which the WB country director inspected.

JPMC executive director Seemin Jamali received the visiting provincial minister and WB country chief and briefed them about the energy requirements of the hospital.

Mr Shaikh said the provincial government with WB assistance had started solarisation of government buildings and hospitals across Sindh.

He said the solarisation work on 35 government hospital buildings was in progress, which included eight hospitals of Karachi — JPMC, Civil Hospital, Liaquatabad Hospital, Orangi Town Hospital, Korangi Hospital, Lyari General Hospital, Ojha Hospital and National Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (NICVD).

He said the provincial government had decided to first solarise the hospitals in all the districts of the province which had corona emergency centres.

The minister said that in the first phase, work on a Rs1.2 billion project to run 29 such hospitals in as many districts of Sindh on solar power would be completed this year and later on other hospitals in the province would also be solarised.

Published in Dawn, June 18th, 2021