ISLAMABAD: Sindh Governor Imran Ismail has said that PM Imran Khan wants to expedite work on the Bundal Island project aimed at constructing two new cities on the island.
While addressing a press conference along with Maritime Affairs Minister Ali Haider today, the governor said the federal government will take all the stakeholders onboard prior to initiating this eco-friendly project.
Bundal Island project off the coast of Karachi will attract $50 billion investment, which will benefit the country’s overall economy, he added.
He said, “Bundle Island will increase the revenue of Sindh and it will also become an important tourist destination in the country.”
The project would attract up to five million tourists with people already approaching the government for investment in the project, Ismail added.
He said the project will generate approximately 150,000 job opportunities, adding that he will hold a meeting with Chief Minister Sindh Murad Ali Shah to address reservations of the Sindh government.
“Bundal Island will remain part of the Sindh province,” he said. “This is not a housing project rather a plan to construct a city,” he added.
On the occasion, Maritime Affairs Minister Ali Haider Zaidi said that the area of Bundle Island is under the jurisdiction of the Port Qasim Authority. “Pakistan People’s Party is trying to make it an issue unnecessarily,” the minister maintained.
Earlier, the Sindh Cabinet had unanimously rejected Pakistan Island Development Authority Ordinance and demanded that the federal government withdraw it at once.
According to a statement from the Chief Minister House, the cabinet unanimously rejected the presidential ordinance under which Pakistan Islands Development Authority had been established.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah chaired a meeting of the cabinet at the CM House and provincial ministers, advisors, chief secretary Mumtaz Shah, and concerned secretaries attended the meeting.
After receiving a detailed briefing on the ordinance promulgated on 31 August 2020 by the President of Pakistan, the cabinet members termed the move was against the “Constitution of Pakistan”.
“The Constitution establishes the ownership of the provincial government on the lands, the islands, and the land in the sea located within its territorial jurisdiction,” the members said in the statement.
“The cabinet said that the ordinance, setting aside the conditions set by the provincial government, declared the islands located in the territorial jurisdiction of the Sindh and Balochistan as the property of the federal government,” the statement added.
It had decided to write a letter to the federal government asking it to withdraw the ordinance which has “denied the rights of the provincial government and its people”.
