Sindh Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani has said the Sindh Chief Minister, Syed Murad Ali Shah, directed the constitution of a Business Facilitation and Coordination Committee to extend maximum relief to the members of the business community and the general public. The Local Government Minister stated this while chairing the second meeting of the Business Facilitation and Coordination Committee on Wednesday. Ghani, who is also chairman of the committee, directed the Director-General of the Sindh Building Control Authority (SBCA) to prepare a sample design of individual housing units to be built on residential plots of 60 square yards to 240 square yards in area. This ready availability of the sample designs would be helpful in the speedy approval of the building plans for the proposed individual residential units under a one-window system.
The Local Government Minister assured the participants of the meeting that reservations of the Association of Builders and Developers (ABAD) would be taken into account regarding the recent amendments to the rules of SBCA to allow commercial activities in the residential buildings. He said the recent amendments had been introduced to give the legal cover to the commercial establishments functioning in the residential areas of Karachi for the last many years. He hinted at further amendments to the SBCA’s rules due to ABAD’s reservations about this issue. Ghani directed the SBCA, Karachi Development Authority, Lyari Development Authority, Malir Development Authority, Hyderabad Development Authority, Sehwan Development Authority, Sindh Master Plan, Karachi Metropolitan Corporation, and other civic agencies to submit a report within a week on progress on digitization of their operations and services.
He assured the participants of the meeting that the next meeting would be attended by the chiefs of Karachi Water & Sewerage Corporation, Hyderabad and Sehwan development authorities. He directed the heads of different civic agencies and authorities to fully act upon the decisions taken by the committee. He directed different civic agencies to compile and submit a report within a week on fees collected by them in the last five years as development charges. He said the land-owning and civic agencies should also submit a report within a week on the plots handed over to their owners for construction and encroachments, and other issues hindering building activities on such land.
The Local Government Minister said the suggestions by the business community and ABAD members that the development charges paid by them to different civic agencies should be duly spent on developing the land under their respective jurisdiction would be seriously considered. The meeting was attended by Sindh CM’s Adviser on Katchi Abadis Syed Najmi Alam, Additional Chief Secretary Local Government Syed Khalid Hyder Shah, Special Secretary Housing, Town Planning Ali Bakhsh Mahar, SBCA Director-General Ishaq Khoro, KDA DG Altaf Gohar, ABAD Chairman Hassan Bakshi, KCCI member Idrees Memon, and other officials. The participants of the meeting also prayed for the departed soul of senior PPP leader Senator Taj Haider, who passed away last night.
