HYDERABAD: Senior Sindh Minister Sharjeel Inam Memon has said that the Sindh government has set a `world record` by undertaking construction of 2.1m houses destroyed or damaged in the 2022 unprecedented rains and flood. He hoped this housing project would get an entry in the Guinness Book of World Records with credit going to the Sindh government.

`It`s an exemplary job to execute this gigantic project meant to rehabilitate thousands of families left homeless due to the natural calamity,` he said while distributing documents of the houses` proprietary rights among some of such families.The ceremony was held at his residence. The documents were handed over to women members of the affected families in order to empower them.

He stated that these women received money in their own accounts for the reconstruction of their houses, and that no contractors had built these houses.

He told the audience that the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) government was building these 2.1m houses under the `Sindh People`s Housing for Flood Affectees` programme, which was the world`s largest.

He said the flood-hit families got these houses free of cost and they were also being given the proprietary rights of the piece of land on which their houses stood. These proprietary rights were given to women of the affected families under PPP Chairman Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari`s directive, he said. He noted that in the past, families had been facing devastation during rains, which used to force them to pitch makeshift camps along roads but this time,they enjoyed rains in their concrete houses.

Federal wheat policy criticised Sharjeel Memon criticised federal government`s wheat policy wondering that it was not ready to offer a procurement price of Rs4,000/40kg to growers but appeared willing to import the commodity at Rs9,000/40kg which, he remarked `is, in fact, a subsidy for Ukraine`s growers`. He claimed that such wheat was not fit for human consumption.

Solar energy According to Memon, Energy Minister Nasir Hussain Shah has been directed by the PPP chairman to ensure distribution of solar systems among the poor in view of increasing electricity cost.

He said that neither the K-Electric nor Hesco or Sepco were able to ensure an uninterrupted power supply to people, and observed that outages had made peo-ple`s lives miserable. He said that 200,000 families would be given solar systems in phase-I. He said that a clean drinking water scheme was also being launched by government.

In the health sector also, people coming from all over the country were benefitting from Sindh`s facilities, he said. He added that the Sindh Institute of Cardiovascular Diseases (SICVD) was offering free of cost treatment to cardiac patients. Besides Cyberknife surgery, he referred to the very recent opening of the Mother and Childcare Centre at the Liaquat University Hospital, Jamshoro, under the Sindh Institute of Child Health and Neonatology (SICHN). He said Cyberknife surgery for cancer patients involved a huge cost but not a single penny was being charged from patients.

He said that if agriculture-friendly policies were introduced, then it would directly benefit Pakistan`s economy. He said Asif Ali Zardari had introduced farmer-friendly policies to benefit this sector.