Sher Afzal
KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah presiding over a cabinet meeting decided to provide shelter to shelter less people under a lost cost housing scheme.
The meeting was held here at CM House on Friday and was attended by all the ministers, advisors, special assistants, new Chi-ef Secretary Sohail Rajput, Chairman P&D Hassan Naqvi and concerned secretaries, said a statement.
The cabinet also granted 15 year upper age limit relaxation to the differently-abled persons in government jobs and considered to regularize katchi abadis by extending cut-off date.
However, he directed the Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority (SKAA) to revisit the regularization act and remove ambiguities, if any and table the agenda item in the next cabinet meeting.
Chairman P&D Hassan Naqvi briefing the cabinet on Mid-year review (MYR) of ADP 2021-22 said that overall Rs 77.875 billion were released, of them Rs 43.777 billion were utilized.
He added that 825 out of 1,034 schemes would be completed during the current financial year.
The meeting was told that 235 schemes have been reported as un-satisfactory by P&D.
At this the chief minister directed the P&D department not to release them funds and directed the concerned departments to examine their schemes declared as unsatisfactory and report him.” I’ll not tolerate substandard works,” the CM said.
Sindh Katchi Abadis Authority floated a proposal in the cabinet to launch low-housing scheme at various locations in the province for shelter less and needy people.
The affected of people of anti-encroachment drives could also be shifted at low housing schemes.
The cabinet was told that the SKAA has 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 housing schemes and simultaneously directed SKAA to prepare a plan for launching such schemes.
The cabinet was told that SKAA have inventorised 1448 unauthorized settlements existing partially or wholly on government land on or before 30 June 1987 for declaration as katchi abadis under the Act 1987. Whereas, a large number of unauthorized settlement have been established after the present cut-off date that is June 30, 1997 which could not be regularised under the present law.
In order to provide relief to dwellers of those Katchi abadies spread all over Sindh, there is need to extend cut-off-date for regularization of Katchi abadis in Sindh from 30 June 1997 to 31 December 2011, therefore the cabinet approved amendment in the Sindh Katchi Abadis Act 1987. A committee for appointment of all categories of differently abled persons was constituted which presented their recommendations.
The committee has recommended changes and relaxations as part of the Recruitment Rules for Persons with Disabilities keeping in mind the difficulties and hardships they are facing in the process of recruitment for implementation of five percent job quota.
The recommendations include the upper age limit for Government jobs shall be relaxed by 15 years for candidates with disabilities.
For Persons with Hearing Impairment, the next lower grading will be considered as academic qualification compared to candidates without disabilities and for persons with intellectual disability, two grades lower academic qualification will be considered that is for persons without disabilities qualification is Graduate then for same job Matric will be academic qualification for persons with intellectual disabilities.
Conditions of experience shall not be compulsory for persons with disabilities as they are already deprived of jobs.
There will be grace marks for persons with disabilities in testing examinations (exemption of fees) applying for the job as persons with disabilities could not compete with their fellows without disabilities.
These marks include 10 grace marks for persons with Visual and Physical Impairment, 15 grace marks for persons with Hearing Impairment and 20 grace marks for persons with Intellectual disabilities
For the posts of Teacher for Deaf and Blind, on merit basis will be given to candidates with Blindness with improved skills in Braille and Computer, Candidates with Hearing-Loss with improved skills in Pakistan Sign Language.
The provincial cabinet approved the constitution of Sujawal as ‘Civil District’ to fix the limits of the district and determine its headquarters.
The cabinet amended different laws such as Stamp act, Sindh Gothabad Act and others for clarity.
