By Shakeel Ahmed
ISLAMABAD: Also on Wednesday, Federal Planning Minister Asad Umar termed as “useless” the debate over how much the federal and Sindh governments will contribute towards the Rs1.1 trillion transformation plan for Karachi. Speaking to reporters in Islamabad, the minister conceded that Sindh would be contributing Rs750 billion to the plan, but said Karachi was awaiting practical work on the ground.
He said both the PTI and PPP will “face the wrath of Karachiites” if all they do are press conferences to counter each other.
“The politics will no longer work,” he stressed.
Responding to claims by the PPP leadership that several of the projects in the transformation plan were “old”, Umar challenged them to show the completed projects on the ground.
Moreover, Minister for Planning, Development and Special Initiatives, Asad Umar on Wednesday stressed the Pakistan People’s Party to focus on ground work of the projects in Karachi committed during the agreement between the federal government and the Sindh Province instead of securing political point scoring.
Talking to media persons here, the minister expressed disappointment over insane debate going on for last four days that who was contributing more in the projects.
He said people of Karachi were not concerned with who was contributing, they only wanted ground work 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 the PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari’s press conference, the minister said, if the Sindh government claimed that it was contributing Rs 750 billion in the Rs 1100 billion for Karachi Transformation Plan, the Center 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 Chief Minister Sindh for handing over the Greater Karachi Water Supply Project (K-IV) project to the Center 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 started.
