THATTA, Sept 23: A consensus meeting attended by elected representatives and local political leaders belonging to the Pakistan Peoples Party along with Thatta administration officials on Monday finalised the lines of demarcation for the new district Sujawal creating it out of the existing Thatta district.
The meeting said to be convened under the special directives of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah and Provincial Minister for Local Bodies and Health Owais Muzzafar (MPA from coastal constituency Ghorabari PS-88 district Thatta) discussed the advantages and disadvantages of creating a new district.
The participants included president Thatta chapter PPP Arbab Wazir Ahmed Memon, PPP Sindh Council member Dr Altaf Khwaja, a coordinator of the health minister on Thatta affairs former MPA Humaira Alwani, former MPA Sassui Palijo, MPA Muhammad Ali Malkani, former adviser chief minister Sindh Ghulam Qadir Malkani, former MPA Usman Malkani. They tabled a joint proposal for separating 27 dehs (smaller administrative units) from Shahbandar Taluka and Sujawal Taluka under the area formula and distributing 20 dehs to Thatta and seven to the proposed Sujawal district.
According to sources, the Sindh government is planning to issue notification of the new district within the next two weeks in order to launch development schemes in Sujawal right before local bodies’ elections.
Political observers believe that the strategy could undermine the political future of the Shirazis, the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz affiliated legislators from Thatta, ahead of the local bodies elections.
Agha Shahnawaz Babar, Thatta Deputy Commissioner, who presided over the meeting said that all participants had agreed unanimously to make Sujawal a new district. He added that Thatta district was spread over a huge area of 18,000 kilometres populated with nearly 1.2 million people and was naturally divided into two parts due to the flowing of Indus River through the district.
The deputy commissioner also said that at this stage there was no question of delimitation of the districts and the creation of a new district would help rapid development of Sujawal by affording new development schemes. This would give the youth of Sujawal more job opportunities and a prosperous future and aid in poverty alleviation, he said. Moreover, with the creation of Sujawal it would be easier to administer and police a smaller unit of area, added the deputy commissioner.