KARACHI, Nov 10: Sindh Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan ordered on Thursday that contractors delaying the Tameer-i-Karachi Programme be blacklisted for future works, and reluctance on part of utilities such as the KESC and the PTCL to shift their installations from project sites be addressed quickly.

He issued this policy directive at a meeting of ministers and officials at the Governor’s House held to review execution of the Rs29 billion package approved by President Pervez Musharraf.

The meeting was attended by Planning and Development Minister Shoaib Bokhari, advisers M.A. Jalil, Waseem Akhtar, Salahuddin Haider and City Nazim Mustafa Kamal.

The city nazim complained that millions of rupees had already been paid to utilities at least six month ago but the KESC and other agencies had been sitting tight on their assignments.

Since all these organizations earn money from Karachi, President Musharraf had ordered that they should contribute to the development of the port city.

The federal government had promised Rs5 billion, the city government and the Sindh government each Rs6 billion, and the remaining Rs12 billion was pledged by the other stakeholders for 2004-07.

The meeting was informed that projects worth Rs1,118 million had been finalized by the Pakistan Steel, PQA, EPZA, CAA, PIA, and military and cantonments out of their Rs3,950 million pledges.

The contribution by the KPT was Rs1,889 million, Rs70 million by oil companies, and Rs162 million by the SBP.

During project-wise review, it was pointed out that while progress on a number of projects such as rehabilitation of the Mai Kolachi bypass from Shahrah-i-Roomi to the Submarine roundabout, the feasibility and design of link corridor between the 8000 Road and Shahrah Mehran, improvement and rehabilitation of Shahrah-i-Ghalib was reasonably satisfactory, several other schemes suffered from lack of coordination between their sponsors, civic agencies, utilities, etc. — APP