PM Imran unveils Rs1.1tln package for Karachi’s development

KARACHI: Prime Minister Imran Khan on Saturday unveiled a comprehensive Rs1.1 trillion package for Karachi aimed at solving its infrastructural and municipal issues over a span of three years.

“The Centre and Sindh government will solve Karachi’s issues ‘together’,” said the prime minister, adding that it was time to solve the city’s issues.

Flanked by Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah and Governor Sindh Imran Ismail, the prime minister said he wanted to come to Karachi earlier but needed “a structure first”.

The premier said that he had been briefed about the city’s issues by authorities and had chalked out a plan which will be implemented in phases to ensure the city gets rid of its problems. He said that the Karachi package will be implemented in a span of three years and the first phase will be a one-year phase while the rest of the phase will be completed in two years.

The first problem the plan will address is of water supply and the Centre and Sindh government will each work on a part of the Greater Karachi Water Supply Scheme, also called K-IV. “Our effort is to permanently solve Karachi’s water problem in three years,” the premier said.

He said the second problem is of encroachments on nullahs on which the National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) has already started work.

“The people who will be displaced [during the anti-encroachment drive] are the poorest so the Sindh government has taken responsibility for resettling them; federal government will obviously remove encroachments,” he added.

PM Imran said that the package will also ensure the completion of Karachi Circular Railways and roads will be built to ensure the problem of transport is handled better.

To implement the plan, a Provincial Coordination and Implementation Committee (PCIC) has been formed to deal with the city’s issues.

The premier said that the government was making a rehabilitation plan for people who had been affected by the floods and that he had spoken to Chief Minister Balochistan Jam Kamal Khan about it as well.

He said that the government will also provide help to the people of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Chitral and Swat who have suffered losses due to the floods.

PM Imran praised the government for handling the COVID-19 pandemic well, saying that very few countries in the world had handled the pandemic like Pakistan had.