The United Nations World Food Programme (UNWFP) has planned to establish one warehouse each in Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur regions to store food and other essential items for meeting any emergency situation, The News has learnt.



The secretary rehabilitation/director general of the Provincial Disaster Management Authority (PDMA) has forwarded a letter to the senior member Board of Revenue (SMBR), Sindh, regarding the availability of official land in the three regions.

The SMBR had suggested that the case should be put before the Facilitation Committee concerned. He recommended that this may be considered as a provincial government project having no provision of funding in the budget and the land may be allotted for free. Subsequently, all executive district officers (Revenue) of Karachi, Hyderabad and Sukkur had been asked to furnish reports about the availability of land.

The EDOs of Sukkur and Hyderabad had submitted their reports, but the report from the EDO Karachi was still awaited, an official said to The News on Sunday.

The EDO Revenue Sukkur reported that six acres of official land was available in Deh Naseerabad Tapo Arain Taluka, New Sukkur, saying that two acres of the land was proposed for the Sindh Rural Support Organisation while the three acres of land was available for the warehouse project. The report pointed out that the front side of the land was handed over to the Sindh Rural Support Organisation and its rear side was available for the warehouse.

The Sukkur administration reported that there appeared no objection if the available land of three acres of survey No. 277 may be granted to the PDMA as per the existing land grant policy.

Similarly, the Hyderabad administration reported that two acres of government land was available for the warehouse in Deh Ganjo Takar, Taluka Latifabad, some 20 kilometres from Fateh Chowk.




Former EDO Karachi Roshan Ali Shaikh told The News that they had identified land in Keamari for the proposed warehouse.

However, Managing Director PDMA Pir Bux Jamali said the proposed land had already been allotted to other parties. He said that at present no official land has been proposed for the warehouse in the metropolis but it was expected to be provided in Bin Qasim area.

Jamali, who recently visited the proposed lands in Hyderabad and Sukkur, said the UNWFP had planned to set up one warehouse in all four provinces this year. He, however, added that the WFP had asked the PDMA to get the proposed lands transferred to its (PDMAís) name. The PDMA chief said construction work on one such warehouse in Sindh was expected to be initiated in July but it could not be done owing to certain reasons. He added that a summary had been moved to Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah for granting the lands to the PDMA for the proposed warehouses. Each warehouse would have the capacity to store around 50,000 metric tonnes of commodity. The UNWFP was also said to have planned to set up a helipad, a parking facility and an office in each warehouse.



The MD PDMA said sufficient land was available in Hyderabad where up to five acres could be sought for the proposed warehouse accompanied with other facilities. Similarly, he added, they expect to get around three-and-a-half acres of land in Sukkur for identical purpose.


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