KHAIRPUR, April 18: District Nazim Niaz Hussain Shah said on Wednesday that the medicines purchased by the district health department had harmful impacts on the health of patients.

He said at a press conference that the department bought substandard medicines from the companies, which had been blacklisted by the Sindh government.

He said that he would hold a meeting with the chief minister to discuss the matter as general public had no benefits from the medicines provided to the hospitals.

To a question about gunny bags, he said that the district monitoring committee had been directed to monitor the complaints and conduct inquiry into the non-provision of gunny bags to growers.

He said that the Food Department was not directly under the district government still the district had directed the monitoring committee to look into the growing complaints about unavailability of gunny bags.

He said that Sindh Minister Pir Sadruddin Shah Rashidi had got a special grant of Rs90 million for the district in a meeting with chief minister for the construction of two projects of water supply on Rohri canal to supply drinking water to people.

He added that a dual-way road from the Civil Hospital Khairpur to Luqman and Chandio Morr would also be reconstructed from this grant. A date palm processing plant worth Rs20 million would be constructed which would greatly benefit the growers, he said.

He said that Gen Pervez Musharraf had announced a special grant of Rs100 million for the district at the foundation-stone laying ceremony for Larkana-Khairpur Bridge and the district was in touch with federal government to get the grant, which would be spent on beautification of the city.