Sindh Chief Minister (CM) Syed Murad Ali Shah, reviewing the progress of 443 ongoing development schemes on Friday, said that he was not satisfied with the pace of work and urged the department concerned to complete 205 schemes by June 2019. The meeting was attended by Education Minister Syed Sardar Shah, Local Government Minister Saeed Ghani, Planning & Development (P&D) Chairman Muhammad Wasim, School Education Secretary Qazi Shahid Parvez, Finance Secretary Najam Shah, PHE Secretary Hassan Naqvi and Colleges Secretary Pervez Sihar. Qazi Shahid Pervez briefing the chair said that 201 schemes of Rs 15.15 billion were in progress against which Rs 6.9 billion have been released while utilisation has been recorded at Rs 3.5 billion. These schemes include establishment of Early Childhood Education Intervention at Hyderabad and Karachi and construction of schools in Tharparkar and construction of shelter schools at different districts such as Jhudo – Mirpurkhas, Hyderabad, Tando Allahyar, Tando Muhammad Khan, Thatta, Sujawal, Mirpurkhas, Umarkot, Jacobabad, Kashmore and Karachi. Education secretary says 201 schemes worth Rs 15.15 billion are in progress against which Rs 6.9 billion have been released The education secretary said that 60 schemes for which 100 percent allocation has been released would be completed by June 2019. At this, the CM directed him to complete 118 schemes of shelter schools and other schools which are required to be made functional just with the purchase of furniture. He directed P&D Chairman Muhammad Wasim to remove these 118 schemes from the next ADP. Pervez Sihar briefing the chief minister said that 48 schemes of Rs 5 billion were in progress, of them Rs 2.1 billion has been released against which utilisation stands at Rs 917 million. He said that 100 percent funds have been released for 16 schemes and 50 percent funds of 19 schemes have been provided while quarterly releases are made for rest of the schemes. These schemes include construction of college buildings at Qazi Ahmed, establishment of boys and degree colleges at Ubauro, Gadap, provision of furniture for colleges constructed at Mirpurkhas, Shaheed Benazirabad and Larkana. There are some repair and renovation works of different colleges. The CM directed Sardar Shah to personally visit these college schemes and out of 48 complete 35 by June 2019 because they would be deleted from the next ADP. Published in Daily Times, March 16th 2019.