KARACHI: The city president of the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf, Ali Zaidi, on Tuesday presented proposals pertaining to healthcare, education, water, transportation, police and energy projects for inclusion in the upcoming 2015-2016 budget.

Speaking at a press conference, he suggested the setting up of a provincial accountability bureau to monitor the progress of development schemes in the province.

On healthcare he demanded the establishment of trauma centres in every government hospital and a large hospital in every district throughout the province. Referring to `ghost doctors` in the health department, the PTI leader said a doctor was practising in Karachi and also drawing salary from a civil hospital in the interior of Sindh.

Mr Zaidi questioned the provincial government`s claim of providing more than 200 sophisticated ambulances which nobody had seen. `The Sindh government claims Rs500 million is being spent on free medicines for the poor,butone shouldtake alook atthe hospitals in the interior of Sindh.

Instead of feeling better, even a healthy person gets sick when he goes to those hospitals.

`Going through development schemes on health from Karachi to Ghotki, the Sindh government claims Rs22 billion a year has been spent on health initiatives and it has opened 1,137 rural health centres, but more than half of them aren`t operational.

How many diseases have honestly been prevented in Sindh through the disease prevention programme?` Earlier, Mr Zaidi said in the past the usual practice had been to react after the budget was presented in the provincial assembly which was wrong.

After examining past five years audit reports of the Sindh government, theKarachi PTI had come up with budget proposals that the government could study. `The Sindh government should establish a provincial accountability bureau on the similar lines as Khyber Pakhtunkhwa which should be tasked to check the implementation of development schemes.

`The government claims to have spent Rs13 billion on education reforms, do we really see any? Also, the government claims 10,000 schools have been built in every district under the Basic Education Programme. I ask the government to show where these schools are located?` About the ongoing water crisis in the city, he said work on the K-IV water project should begin on a war footing and its allocation be included in the upcoming budget. `If the water crisis in Karachi isn`t addressed, a war for water is around the corner.

Small filtration plants around Karachi should be repaired immediately, he said.

On police, Mr Zaidi insisted it should be revived as law and order was the most important issue and `whoever is being provided with VIP security should pay instead of the taxpayer. All police stations should be electronically linked with each other through a centralised database`.

About the issue of transportation, Karachi PTI president demanded that the Karachi Circular Railway project be restarted immediately and bus routes in the city be given to the private sector based on a competitive bidding process.

He also recommended to the government to look into alternative energy projects such as converting waste matter into electricity. `Norway is amongst the largest oil producers in Europe but use waste to generate electricity. Why aren`t we looking into using similar technologies as we have access to a lot of waste that can be used for this purpose?`