Daily Times

KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah has allocated Rs 45 million to upgrade Benazir Shaheed ANF Medical Drug addicts’ Treatment and Rehabilitation Centre (BSAMDATRC) in Lyari and construct a similar centre in Sukkur – apart from paying the monthly expenses to rehabilitate the drug addicts.

He took the decision during his meeting with Anti-Narcotics Force Director General (DG) Major General Nasir Dilawar who called on him at the CM House on Wednesday.

The director general informed the chief minister that the previous provincial government had given them BSAMDATRC – a 50-bed hospital only for men at Layri – and was providing Rs 500,000 grant to meet its salaries and other expenditures.

The chief minister said that the hospital must be upgraded in terms of beds and rehabilitation facilities for women also. On this Dilawar said that the ANF had started the construction of another hospital of 100 beds but there was a shortage of funds to complete the project.

Murad approved Rs 40 million for the project’s completion, doubled ANF’s monthly grant to Rs 1 million and said that another such centre was needed in Sukkur.

ANF’s director general said that they have already been given land by the Sindh government but Rs 5 million were required to construct Sukkur’s rehabilitation centre – for which Murad approved the amount from his special funds and urged him to immediately start the work.

Murad also vowed to fund Sukkur’s rehabilitation centre’s necessary expenditures. “We need these centres because the rehabilitation process in the private sector is very expensive,” he said.