Sindh cabinet decides to launch housing scheme for homeless persons

The Sindh cabinet on Friday decided to launch low-cost housing schemes to provide shelter to homeless people. It also granted 15-year upper age limit relaxation to the persons with disabilities to for government jobs.

The cabinet meeting was held at the Chief Minister’s House and presided over by Sindh CM Syed Murad Ali Shah. It was attended by all the provincial ministers, advisers, special assistants, new chief secretary Sohail Rajput, Planning & Development Board Chairman Hassan Naqvi and others.

At the outset of the meeting, the CM said that due to an effective strategy of the Pakistan Peoples Party leadership, a new government had come into power in the federal capital. “This is a new era of cooperation, joint working and prosperity for the country,” he said and directed his ministers to be more active for the resolution of public problems.

Annual Development Programme

The planning and development board chairman briefed the cabinet on the mid-year review of the Annual Development Programme (ADP) 2021-22 and said that overall Rs77.875 billion were released, of which Rs43.777 billion utilised.

He said that 825 of the 1,034 development schemes in the ADP would be completed during the current financial year. The cabinet was told that 235 development schemes had been termed unsatisfactory by the planning department.

To this, the CM directed the department to not release funds for such schemes. He also directed the departments concerned to examine the schemes that were declared unsatisfactory. “I’ll not tolerate substandard work,” the CM said.

Housing scheme

The Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA) floated a proposal to launch low-cost housing schemes at various locations in the province for homeless people. It was said that the people affected by anti-encroachment drives could also be shifted to such housing schemes.

The cabinet was told that the SKAA had already launched Sasti Basti schemes at different locations of the province. The cabinet approved the proposal and directed the Board of Revenue to identify lands all over Sindh for low-cost housing schemes and simultaneously directed the SKAA to prepare a plan for launching such schemes.

The meeting was told that the SKAA had inventorised 1,448 unauthorised settlements existing partially or wholly on government land in Sindh on or before June 30, 1987 for declaration as katchi abadis under its 1987 Act, but a large number of unauthorised settlements were established after the present cut-off date that was June 30, 1997, and so such settlements could not be regularised under the present law.

In order to provide relief to dwellers of those katchi abadies spread all over Sindh, it was said that there was a need for extending the cut-off-date for the regularisation of Katchi Abadis in the province from June 30, 1997 till December 31, 2011.

The cabinet approved to amend the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act 1987 to extend the cut-off date.

Differently-abled persons

A committee earlier constituted for the recruitment of differently abled-persons in all the categories of the government jobs presented its recommendations. The body recommended changes and relaxation in the selection criteria as part of the recruitment rules for the persons with disabilities in view of the difficulties and hardships they faced in the process of the implementation of the five per cent job quota reserved for them.

The recommendations said that the upper age limit for government jobs shall be relaxed by 15 years for the candidates with disabilities. Conditions of experience shall not be compulsory for such persons as they were already deprived of jobs.

There shall be grace marks for persons with disabilities in testing examinations and exemption of fees for them for appearing in these tests. For persons with visual and physical impairment, there would be 10 grace marks, 15 grace marks for persons with hearing impairment and 20 grace marks for persons with intellectual disabilities.

The recruitment against the posts of teachers for deaf and blind would be carried out on meritorious basis. The blind candidates with improved skills in Braille and computer and

candidates with hearing-loss with improved skills in Pakistani sign language would be given preference for these teaching jobs.