KARACHI: Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday said that around 1.8 million houses were destroyed during the heavy rains and flash floods across the province and added that Rs1.5 trillion was required for their reconstruction.

In his meeting with Asian Development Bank (ADB) Director General (Central & West Asia) Eugenue Zhukov, he said that the World Bank had pledged Rs110 billion loan against a requirement of Rs1.5tr for reconstruction of flood-affected houses and urged the Asian bank to meet the shortfall of the funds. He asked the ADB to meet the shortfall of Rs1.39tr.

The World Bank had agreed in principle to finance Rs110bn projects of the Sindh government to reconstruct houses for flood-affected people in Sindh.

The provincial government has also established a company to start the construction of the houses with the support of the public and the private sectors.

Says total Rs1.5tr needed for construction of 1.8m houses while WB pledged only Rs110bn

The CM said that the due to floods people had lost around 1.8m houses in the province, adding that the initial estimates showed that Rs1.5tr was required for reconstruction.

He said that the World Bank had pledged Rs110bn ($500m) against the total requirement of Rs1.5tr. “We shall be thankful if the ADB meets the shortfall of Rs1,390 billion so that all the homeless people could be provided with shelter/house,” he said.

The visiting ADB official told the chief minister that they had committed $475m with the federal government, of which $300m would be the share of the provincial government for the construction of damaged infrastructure.

It was further informed that $100m out of $475m would be given to the National Highway Authority for the reconstruction of the Motorway from Karachi to Hyderabad.

Mr Eugenue said that the ADB would give a project to mitigate the effects of climate change. The project was under consideration between the ADB and the Sindh Planning & Development department.

Published in Dawn, October 27th, 2022