Sindh, WB to work together to make solid waste management board more effective

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and World Bank Country director Patchamuthu Illangovan have agreed to work together to make the Sindh Solid Waste Management Board more effective and introduce changes in the cropping pattern to improve the rural economy.

The decision to this effect was taken on Friday in a meeting between the CM and the World Bank country director at the CM House. The meeting was attended by Chairperson Sindh Planning & Development Board Naheed Shah and Principal Secretary to CM Sajid Jamal Abro. The chief minister said that the SSWMB had already been established in the city. He added that it was a new body and needed capacity building so that it could work scientifically with best efficiency.

The World Bank country chief said that he would send solid waste management experts to the Sindh government and through the Sindh Planning and Development Department a detailed plan would be worked out to improve the capacity of the garbage disposal board so that not only its efficiency in solid waste disposal and management could be improved but it also became a self-sufficient organisation.

It was agreed that the SSWMB’s capacity building would be made in such a way that it could work all over Sindh in different phases. In the first phase, it would start work in divisional headquarters and then in district headquarters of the province.

The CM said that growers of the province were engaged in growing traditional crops of high deltaic area that gave a low yield. “I want to introduce a major change in the cropping pattern in which low deltaic crops can be grown with high yield,” he said and added this would improve the rural economy. Shah said that a separate cropping system should also be developed for small growers. “We have to improve their income by switching them over to orchards-cum-cash crops,” he said.

World Bank Country Director Patchamuthu Illangovan said that he would bring global agricultural experts here with him and would hold their meetings with agriculture department and P&D experts. He added that they would prepare a plan for the purpose to implement it in phases. The CM said that the provincial government was working in the area of mother and child health and nutritional programmes in different districts, including Thar. This programme has produced some good results, he added.