KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Thursday said that investments in Karachi had remained high on agenda for undertaking development activities for infrastructure and services. A hefty amount of Rs137.3 billion had been spent over the last five years for development projects mainly for internal roads, water supply, sewerage, solid waste management, storm water drains, and transport and mass transit, he said.

Addressing a 75-member delegation of Security Workshop-24 of National Defence University (NDU) led by Brigadier Tariq Niaz at the CM House, he said that 150 kilometres of roads were constructed through 73 major projects along with stormwater drains, 14 flyovers, underpasses and bridges on major roads, adding that four Bus Rapid Transport (BRT) schemes, 31 major schemes for water supply and sewerage systems, and 28 major schemes for health and education infrastructure were in progress.

He said that when the PPP came into power in 2008, the law and order situation in the province was worst.

“Karachi was ranked sixth dangerous city in the world on the international crime index in 2014, and now it is at 128th,” he pointed out.

Says damage in agriculture, industry, and services sectors estimated at 4.8 per cent of 2022 GDP

The CM said that the Afghanistan war was also responsible for terrorism, therefore, a National Action Plan (NAP) was launched under which targeted operations were initiated which produced the best results.

The CM said that coal-fired power generation in Thar was a great achievement of the provincial government. He said that Thar was contributing around 1,000MW to the national grid.

He said that the Nooriabad power project, in which his government had shares, was providing uninterrupted 100MW electricity to Karachi.

Talking about post-disaster need assessment (PDNA), the economic impact of floods-2022, the chief minister said that extensive damage in agriculture, industry, and services sectors, was estimated at equivalent to 4.8 per cent of 2022 GDP.

He said that significant losses in GDP as a direct impact of the floods are projected to be around 2.2pc in 2022, with agriculture accounting for the largest decline at 0.9pc.

“Multidimensional poverty in Sindh is expected to increase by 10.2pc points,” the CM said, and added that among provinces, the housing stock in Sindh had been the worst affected, accounting for 83pc of the total housing damage.

Mr Shah said that the unprecedented recovery and reconstruction needed to be projected at 1.6 times the budgeted national development expenditure for 2023.

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2022