Rs5 bn solar village electrification afoot in rural areas, says Sindh CM

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday said that solar electrification of villages is afoot in rural areas at the cost of Rs5 billion.

“Rural Development Department (RDD) has also been assigned to install solar lights in rural areas for Rs3 billion. It has also been given Rs2 billion for electrification of off-grid areas through Solar Technology under which schools and villages would be electrified,” he said while presiding a meeting of Public Health Engineering (PHE) and RDD here at the CM House.

Minister for PHE & RDD Fayaz Butt, Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem, Principal Secretary to CM Sohail Rajput, Secretary Public Health Tamizuddin Khero, Member P&D Khalid Mahmood, Chief Enigineer Hyderabad Nafees Shaikh, Director Tech P&D Abdul Sattar Qureshi and other concerned officers were also present on this occasion.

A similar phase-II of Rs80 billion would be launched later, said the CM.

“I would urge you (PHE&RDD) to be more effective and efficient to achieve the assigned task,” he directed Fayaz Butt.

Murad said that the PHE and RDD were playing vital role in the development of rural areas, but it became the ultimate responsibility of local people to look after their water supply, drainage and solar energy schemes.

On this occasion, the minister PHE&RDD said that the PHE department has launched 231 water supply and drainage schemes at the cost of Rs4.11 billion, of them 165 are ongoing and 76 are new.

The meeting was informed that against the allocation of Rs4.1 billion, the government has released Rs4 billion and the overall work on the schemes would be completed by 88 percent.

Giving the breakup of the schemes, the meeting was told that 70 water supply and 115 drainage schemes are ongoing against a cost of Rs3.8 billion.

Secretary PHE Tameezuddin Khero told the meeting that 40 RO plants were installed in 13 districts, of them 35 are functional.

On this the chief minister directed him to take necessary measures to functionalise the out of order five RO plants located in Tando Allahyar (3 units), Naushehroferoze (one unit), and Mirpurkhas (3 units).

He also directed Fayaz Butt to personally visit out of order RO plants and the functional plants also so that necessary measures could be taken to repair them.

Butt said that RDD department has launched a programme to install 1,4222 LED lights in the streets of rural areas. He added that so far 8,376 have been installed. The details are 3,080 in district Hyderabad villages, 1579 Shaheed Benazirabad, 868 in Mirpurkhas, 1,774 in Larkana and 1,075 in Sukkur villages.

The RDD during 2017-18 has launched 63 schemes of Rs4.9 billion 63 schemes of water and drainage scheme for which allocation for the current financial year is Rs3billion and so far Rs122m have been released.

The chief minister said that a scheme of Rs68 million has been launched to install solar tube wells for water supply to different villages of Thano Bola Khan.

Similar schemes have also been taken up for the villages of Mehar and Khairpur Nathan Shah for Rs28 million and in various other villages of Tangwani- Kandhkot district, taluka Duar of Nawabshah and so. He directed Chairman P&D Mohammad Waseem to work out a plan to hand over the completed schemes to village communities to look after them.

“This is very important, otherwise it would be difficult to keep vigilance on them,” he said.