Mega projects in Nawabshah abandoned due to red tape

NAWABSHAH: Most of the mega projects launched by spending billions of rupees during the tenure of the former president Asif Ali Zardari have been abandoned due to the bureaucratic red tape.

A 300 bed mother and child care hospital, constructed at a cost of Rs 1,240 million at Qazi Ahmed Road, has been converted to a few room clinic being run by an NGO. It lacks ventilators and children in critical condition are referred to Hyderabad and Karachi. The gynae department at the hospital is yet to be established.

On the other hand, 300-bed Benazir Institute of Urology and Kidney Transplantation Centre project built at Court Road at a cost of Rs700 million was 90 per cent complete and remains non functional. Another mega project of anti-rabies and anti venom (dog, snake) vaccine production remains non-functional due to non availability of funds and the staff hired to run it have similarly not paid their salaries for the past several months. An ultra-filtration plant for clean drinking water constructed at a cost of Rs1.5 billion also remains non-functional and the employees are not being paid salaries.

The main roads and streets of the city remain in dilapidated condition but in order to accommodate some of the influentials, the roads linking their farms to markets have been constructed at a cost of Rs220 million. The people of Nawabshah have demanded the chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, Co-Chairman MNA Asif Ali Zardari, and Chief Minister Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah to complete the abandoned projects and improve the civics facilities.