Govt to launch adopt-a-park plan in Karachi

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Sindh Chief Secretary Syed Mumtaz Ali Shah has said that the provincial government has to work fast to restore 138 parks in the city which have been recently cleared of encroachments, as otherwise their land could once again be encroached upon by anti-social elements.He stated this on Saturday as he chaired a meeting at the Sindh Secretariat on the proposed “adopt-a-park” policy of the government.The chief secretary said that the regime of public-private partnership would be utilised to restore parks in the city, which had been recently cleared of encroachments.He said the government would engage well-reputed educational institutions, non-governmental and community-based organisations, and private entities to restore the parks and later to a have a surveillance system on them so to secure their land against any attempt to encroach upon it.He said that the proposed “adopt-a-park” policy was aimed at getting help of the private, non-governmental sectors, and the civil society to restore and maintain public parks in Karachi. He said that in the past too the government on several occasions had restored parks in the city, but later their land was encroached upon due to lack of community ownership in managing these amenity spaces.The chief secretary said that the involvement of the civil society would ensure ever-lasting presence of these parks in the city. He added that all around the world the civil society was being engaged in the adopt-a-park regime. He said the government would provide utmost technical and other assistance to the prospective adopters of parks for the success of this policy.He said the Sindh government had already been successfully running the adopt-a-school programme in the province as the Sindh Education Foundation kept surveillance on such adopted government schools.The chief secretary said the provincial government would not allow any sort of commercial activities on the adopted parks and the public would continue to get full access to such amenity spaces in the city.He said the government would sign a proper memorandum of understanding with the prospective adopters of a park and due punitive action would be taken by the authorities concerned in case of violation of this MoU.Commissioner Karachi Iftikhar Ali Shallwani told the meeting that there were 1,578 parks in the city and some of them had been non-functional, encroachments had been removed from 138 public parks, and encroachments would soon be removed from another 79 parks.The meeting among others was also attended by Local Government Secretary Roshan Ali Shaikh, Secretary School Education Ahsan Ali Mangi, Director General Private Institutions Mansoob Hussain Siddiqui, and Metropolitan Commissioner Karachi Dr Saifur Rehman.

from The News International - Karachi https://ift.tt/2Mwzs7S
The News International - Karachi