HYDERABAD, June 24: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah has said that tribal clashes, rivalries and illiteracy are big challenges confronting Sindh and called upon intellectuals, writers and lovers of literature to perform their role to bring about social change.

He was speaking at a function to mark 55th birth anniversary of Benazir Bhutto organised by the Sindh chapter of the Pakistan People’s Party’s cultural wing at Dr Nabi Bux Baloch auditorium of the Sindhi Language Authority, here late on Monday.

The chief minister said that anti-democratic elements had hatched a conspiracy against the people of Sindh and divided the province into tribes and pitted them against one another resulting in bloodshed of innocent people.

He said though Sindh government was taking strict action to prevent this practice, the cooperation of intellectuals and writers was essentially required to bring the province out of these crises through behavioural change in the masses.

He said the previous government had ruined the province in the field of education and economically under a conspiracy and virtually paralysed the educational institutions.

He said that the severity of that challenge could be gauged from the fact that today almost 70,000 children were out of schools.

He said that Ministry of Education had been entrusted with the task of qualitative change in education so that parents should be proactive and send their children for education.

He said Ms Benazir Bhutto was very keen to raise living standards of people by providing basic facilities of education, employment and health care and added that following the guideline of Ms Bhutto our government had raised the allocation for education sector up to 88 per cent and for the health sector up to 130 per cent in addition to earmarking Rs5 billion in the budget of 2008-09 to combat the menace of hepatitis-B and C.

Sindh Minister for education Pir Mazharul Haq in his speech said “if we failed to get united, we would lose what we have achieved under the leadership of Benazir Bhutto”.

The provincial minister for culture and tourism, Ms Sassui Palijo, said that Rs100 million had been set aside for the establishment of Shaheed Bhutto Museum at Garhi Khuda Bux and a gallery on Benazir Bhutto was being established at Sindh Museum Hyderabad.

Sindh University Vice-Chancellor Mazharul Haq Siddique said Benazir Bhutto was very keen for the development and had constituted the social sector coordination committee in the cabinet during her first tenure as the prime minister.

Dr Ghulam Ali Allana proposed the establishment of an institution of Shaheed Benazir Bhutto studies and the Shaheed Benazir Bhutto chair with a resource centre to guide the future generations. He said he had prepared the scheme much before.

Hameed Sindhi, Comrade Jam Saqi, Sindh Democratic Forum convener Abrar Qazi, SLA Chairperson Dr Fehmida Hussain and others also spoke on the occasion.