Focus on groundwork of projects in Karachi: Asad Umar

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives Asad Umar on Wednesday stressed the Pakistan People's Party to focus on groundwork of the projects in Karachi committed during the agreement between the federal government and the Sindh province instead of political point-scoring.

Talking to media persons here, the minister expressed disappointment over insane debate going on for the lastfour days that who was contributing more in the projects. He said the people of Karachi were not concerned with who was contributing, they only wanted groundwork of the projects.

"The people of Karachi will hurl shoes at both PPP and PTI if they continue press conferences against each other instead of initiating practical work," he added. Referring to the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's press conference, the minister said that if the Sindh government claimed that it was contributing Rs750 billion in the Rs1,100 billion for Karachi Transformation Plan, the Centre was not much concerned.

But, he said, the PPP did not have will to initiate work for the development of the city. "If you do not have will to work, it will not be done through just press conferences. "The minister said, "Work from our side has started as I called a meeting immediately after the agreement in which a week-long deadline was set to start implementing the Plan.”

He said today he wrote a letter to Sindh chief minister for handing over the Greater Karachi Water Supply Project (K-IV) to the Centre as per desire of the Sindh government. He said the federal government had already initiated process for implementation of the KTP.

To a question, the minister said that the K-IV, Karachi Circular Railways (KCR), Green Line and S3 were old projects but ground work on those projects never started. When asked that these projects were failed ones, he questioned how these could be declared as failed projects when work on them did not start.