Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Wednesday directed the Sindh Education and Literacy Department to complete the reconstruction of 3,328 schools out of 19,808 damaged by the 2022 floods by the end of this fiscal year.

In 2022, floods caused widespread devastation in several parts of the country, killing 1,700 people, affecting 33 million people, destroying infrastructure, washing away swathes of agricultural land, and incurring economic losses worth $30 billion, according to government estimates. Balochistan and Sindh were the worst affected provinces.

Presiding over a review meeting of the school education department today at the Chief Minister’s House, Shah was told that out of 19,808 schools, reconstruction and repair of 3,328 schools under different projects have either been started or are in the tender process.

CM Shah instructed the education minister to “personally monitor the construction work so that these schools could be reconstructed by the end of June 2025.”

He was further told that the repair work of 1,769 schools and the reconstruction of 1,559 school buildings have been taken up under 10 different local and foreign-assisted projects with Rs114.3 billion.

They include the SSEIP (flood-assisted) project under which 1,026 schools will be repaired/reconstructed for Rs62.6 billion. Tenders for the project have been issued. The repair and reconstruction of 31 schools under SSEIP (regular) have been taken up for Rs4 million and work on them is in progress.

Under the SELECT project, 166 schools will be reconstructed for which tenders have been floated, while 111 schools are under construction for Rs2.44 billion under the DEEP project.

Under the ASPIRE project, four schools are under construction for Rs112.7 billion.

China has given a grant of Rs7.6 billion for reconstruction of 100 schools and the scheme is under approval process.

Under the PSDP tenders for repair/reconstruction of 456 schools have been floated for Rs10.7 billion.

JIACA has also given Rs419.38 million to repair and reconstruct five schools for which bids were under evaluation.

Under the ADP repair/reconstruction of 687 schools is in progress for Rs7.89 billion. Through Maintenance & Repair, 742 schools are being repaired for Rs3 billion and work is in progress.

Minister Education Syed Sardar Shah told the CM that 824,008 children were enrolled in the 3,328 schools damaged by the floods. The CM directed the school education department to keep visiting the schools where repair work has been started or would be taken up to review their educational activities.

The school education department has developed a dashboard that reflects all 40,978 schools and their 5,219,784 enrolments. It also shows the 19,808 damaged schools, including 7,503 completely damaged.

The dashboard has also the ability to track the development works carried out on the ground and even the process of procurement, tendering stage, and approval process.

The chief minister directed the School Education Department to complete the construction work of the 3,328 school buildings by the end of the current financial year.

Meanwhile, CM Shah said he would arrange funds for the remaining 16,480 schools so that they could also be repaired/reconstructed.