President Asif Ali Zardari. – File Photo

KARACHI: President Asif Ali Zardari has taken serious notice of slow pace of rehabilitation of storm-water drains in Sindh and directed the provincial government to get local people involved in the project.

The meeting decided that drains would be made operational by carrying out necessary improvement and rehabilitation to drain out stagnating rain/flood water.

Briefing newsmen at the Bilawal House, Provincial Information Minister Shazia Marri said short-term projects would be completed by 2013 and Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas road by June this year.

Chief Minister Qaim Ali Shah, Home Minister Manzoor Wassan, Secretary General Salman Farooqui, Education Minister Pir Mazharul Haq, Agriculture Minister Ali Nawaz Shah, Finance Minister Murad Ali Shah, Rehabilitation Minister Muzaffar Shujra, Local Government Minister Agha Siraj Durrani, Irrigation Minister Jam Saifullah Dharejo and Adviser to the CM Sharmila Farooqui attended the meeting.

The meeting was informed that work on short- and long-term irrigation drainage plans, with the collaboration of foreign consultants, was under way. The Sindh government has released Rs1.5 billion for completion of the first phase of the short-term plan by the end of June. Its second phase is expected to complete by the end of next year. The plan will restore 5,000km of drainage area of the old system.

The meeting was told that so far Canada had come forward to contribute towards the fresh appeal of $400 million for rehabilitation of flood victims.

The chief minister briefed the president on progress of his earlier directives to appoint a monitoring committee to supervise the work pertaining to reclaiming the historical old drainage channels.

The president directed that the work on reclamation of historical drainage channels for minimising flood damage be expedited. He also directed that teachers training programmes should be completed on priority to ensure that children are taught by trained and capable staff.

The education minister informed the meeting that the Sindh Development Teachers Education Authority had been set up to focus on training of teachers.

The president reiterated his call to speed up training programmes under the Sindh Waseela-i-Haq scheme in all districts of the province so that beneficiaries could set up their own small businesses.

The finance minister told the meeting that about 800 people were being trained in the first phase of the Waseela-i-Haq programme and they would be receiving Rs300,000 each after a week-long training which would enable them to identify the type of business venture and the process to manage it.

The finance minister said the Hyderabad-Mirpurkhas carriageway would be completed by June and five companies had been short-listed for submission of final bids for the construction of Hyderabad-Badin road.