KARACHI: Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah and Federal Minister for Environment & Climate Change Sherry Rehman agreed to work on various eco-tourism projects.
During a meeting held on Saturday at the CM house, the two decided to work on de-pollution of Manchhar Lake, development of eco-tourism on Keenjhar Lake and Miani Forest, establishing fisheries cold chains and development of sustainable Fisheries Management Framework.
The meeting was briefed that the federal government has established a ‘National Disaster Risk Management Fund (NDRMF)’ to finance the sub-projects that would contribute to enhancing Pakistan’s resilience to climatic and other natural hazards and to strengthen the government’s ability to respond to disasters triggered by natural hazards.
The fund was also mandated to support climate-related interventions for climate change adaptation and mitigation. It has already committed an amount of US$ 38.78 million nationally for implementing the relevant projects and complimenting the realization of National Disaster Management Plan (NDMP) and National Flood Protection Plan (NEPP-IV).
Sherry said that the fund was planning to initiate proposal processing for Phase-II by November 2022 with anticipated approval of financing for the same by June 2023. The chief minister said that the NDRMF had approved the project ‘Towards Resilient Marine Ecosystem and Sustainable Blue Economy’ for Rs 1.98 billion. The location of the year-long project, (2022-23 & 2023-2024) was the coastal areas of District Thatta, Sujawal, Badin & Karachi.
The project consists of two main components: Resilient Marine Ecosystem and Utilization of saline-hit land.
The chief minister said that the projects were already approved for the current financial year. He added that he wanted to start work on them at the earliest. The federal minister assured the chief minister that their funds would be released at the earliest so that the projects could be started.
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