Sindh Chief Minister accuses Imran-led Pak govt of treating province with abject bias

Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday accused Imran Khan-led Pakistan government of treating the country's province with abject bias and urged him to reconsider the proposed Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

Dawn reported that Shah urged Prime Minister to reconsider the PSDP terming it lopsided as it was 'detrimental' to the interests of people living in Sindh.

Giving the four-year break-up of the number of schemes and their allocation for provincially executed projects for Sindh in the PSDP, he said only six schemes with a total allocation of Rs 5,069.14 million were proposed in 2021, while the number of schemes in 2017-18 was 27 with a total allocation of Rs 23,387.21m.

He said there were 10 schemes with the allocation of Rs 8,302m in 2020-21, 13 schemes of Rs 8.508.85m in 20019-20 and 22 schemes with allocation of 14,266.72 m in 2018-19.

"As you note above, grave injustice is being meted out to the people of Sindh ever since the current federal government came into power in August 2018," the letter read.

He also said that the National Highway Authority was responsible for executing major road sector schemes in the country, but there was big difference between the numbers of schemes given to Sindh as opposed to other provinces.

"There were 22 schemes with total allocation of Rs 32,151.57m for Punjab and 21 schemes with allocation of Rs 41,256.48m for KP and 15 schemes with allocation of Rs 24,150m for Balochistan in the proposed PDSP 2021-22, while there were only two schemes with allocation of 7,111.95m for Sindh," he said while adding "I know the above data is unbelievable, but it is unfortunately a reality."

As per the newspaper, the country's development projects of the National Highway Authority (NHA) have been stalled due to a lack of disbursement of funds under the PSDP for the third quarter of the current fiscal year.

The NHA contractors did not get payments for the last three months because of the non-release of funds and as a result, they adopted a policy of either go-slow or abandoned the infrastructure projects, including those being executed under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC).

( With inputs from ANI )