Asad Umar stresses speedy work on Karachi development projects

ISLAMABAD: Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar on Wednesday stressed for the need by PPP to focus on ground work of projects in Karachi committed to during the agreement between the federal government and the Sindh, instead of engaging in political point scoring.

Talking to media in the capital city, the minister expressed disappointment over the insane debate going on for the last four days over who was contributing more in the projects.

He said people of Karachi were not concerned with who was contributing, they only wanted ground work to begin.

"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 said.

Referring to PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari's press conference, Umar said that if the Sindh government claimed that it was contributing Rs750 billion in the Rs 1,100bn Karachi Transformation Plan, the Centre was not much concerned.

He said the PPP did not have the will to initiate work for the development of the city.

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 Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah for handing over the Greater Karachi Water Supply Project (K-IV) project to the Centre as per the desire of the Sindh government.

To a question, the minister said that the K-IV, Karachi Circular Railways (KCR), Green Line metro bus, 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 even begin.