KARACHI, Feb 21: Though the KDA is to be devolved/ merged with the city government by June, the transaction team has finalized details of its departments for their merger with the offices of the City District Government Karachi.

Nineteen departments of the Karachi Development Authority will be merged with 11 groups of offices of the city government.

At a recent briefing to the DCO Karachi by the chief transaction officer of the KDA, Brig Zaheer Qadri, its former DG who is now working as the EDO Works and Services, the former was informed that the KDA had a working strength of 5,433 against the total sanctioned strength of 5813, so it had a shortfall of 613 personnel.

The Engineering Department of the KDA is its largest department with a total working strength of 2,573 personnel and it also has 224 staff and officers more than sanctioned to the department.

The Engineering Department and the Design Bureau will be part of the works and services department of the city government.

The KDA’s Directorate of Finance and Accounts and the Purchase Department will be merged with finance and planning office.

Four departments, the Directorate of Land management, Directorate of Estates and Enforcement, Directorate of Recoveries and Directorate of Marketing, Public Housing Scheme, will be merged with the revenue office.

The medical cell has already been merged with health office, education cell of the KDA under the education office, the computer division with the information technology office, the KDA secretariat and the Directorate of Public Relations with human resource management and media management department of the DCO office.

The law department has temporarily been placed with the revenue office, and it will be later merged with the law office of the city government.

Out of 15 departments of the city government, two departments entirely consist of different departments of the KDA.

The transport and communication office of the city government consists of the Traffic Engineering Bureau and the Karachi Mass transit Cell.

The master plan office consists of the KDA’s master plan and environment control department and the directorate of planning and urban design; the largest component of this department, the Karachi Building Control Authority, will be merged with the city government from 1-07-2002.— PPI