KARACHI: The Sindh cabinet on Wednesday fixed wheat procurement target at 1.4 million tonnes and approved allocation of Rs70 billion for procuring the grain at support price of Rs2,200 per 40 kg bag.
It allowed the food department to purchase gunny sacks needed for meeting the target at the ratio of 90 per cent of polypropylene bags and 10 per cent of jute bags if the jute bags were available in the market.
The chief minister directed the food department to set up procurement centres in the last week of February in order that procurement could be started right from March 1.
Compensation
The cabinet approved an amount of Rs915,230,000 to provide compensation to shopkeepers in Cooperative Market and Victoria Centre for the fire which had reduced their businesses to ashes on Nov 14, 2021.
The meeting advised the shopkeepers to get their shops insured against fire to avoid losses in future.
PSM land
The cabinet observed that the Pakistan Steel Mills were planning to dispose of its extra land though the mills authorities were not competent to dispose of their land. The cabinet directed the revenue department to issue instructions to sub-registrar not to register any land disposed of/sold by the PSM.
Recruitment in jail dept
The home department told the cabinet that 2,113 posts of grade BS-5 to 15, including 1,355 constables, were vacant in prisons which were facing serious problems due to shortage of staff.
It was pointed out that the cabinet in its meeting held on Nov 21, 2019 had approved IBA Sukkur as testing agency for the recruitment but the IBA had shown inability to conduct body measurement and running tests.
The cabinet directed the home department to hire services of some other testing service. The cabinet approved a proposal to hand over Government Polytechnic Institute Azam Basti to SZABIST to operate it on Public Private Partnership mode.
HVDC line allowed to pass through Sindh
The cabinet approved to give right of way to the Matiari-Lahore High Voltage Direct Current (HVDC) Transmission Line Project having designed capacity of 4,000MW and line length of 878km, a portion of which was passing through the territory of Sindh.
The energy department told the meeting that HVDC project was on priority list of CPEC projects. The cabinet also directed the chief secretary to implement the decisions of the Supreme Court on KPT Housing Society.
The cabinet directed SMBR to protect the lands of the Malir Expressway so that no one could encroach them.
Published in Dawn, February 3rd, 2022
