KARACHI – A group of German and Chinese firms offered to build for the Sindh government three healthcare and a sustainable farming project on the Build, Operate and Transfer (BOT) model.
The BOT mode is an arrangement in which the private sector builds an infrastructure project, operates it and eventually transfers ownership of the project to the government.
The joint offer was extended to Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah by the chiefs of the firms in a meeting held at the CM House.
The projects include two 200-bed cancer and organ transplant facilities, a 30 to 50-bed emergency centre, a quality ambulance service as well as a sustainable agriculture system.
The emergency centre will also have an air ambulance facility, whereas the cancer hospital would in addition make proton therapy available for patients.
The CM was accompanied by health minister, Dr Sikandar Mendhro, interior minister, Sohail Anwar Siyal, livestock and fisheries minister, Mohammad Ali Malkani, principal secretary to CM, Sohail Rajput, secretary livestock, Sohail Akbar Shah, secretary health, Fazlullah Pechuho, secretary agriculture, Sajid Jamal Abro, and other senior, concerned governmental officers.
The German and Chinese firms were represented by chairman China Rainbow Li Dacan and RE Tech’s CEO Arshad Raja along with other members of their delegation.
The emergency centres will be established on district level and will be accessible for the local population seeking basic treatments.
The foreign investors offered to completely revamp and upgrade the province’s healthcare system and bring it in line with international standards.
Normally, patients travel to urban cities or towns to have their illnesses treated but once these facilities are set up, the government hospitals will get a huge respite from the daily load of patients the hospitals deal with, it was observed in the meeting
German experts are to ensure the state-of-the-art ambulance service is run by qualified and trained officials.
Addressing the meeting, Murad said an ‘emergency’ was declared in health and education sectors to improve them at the earliest.
“There have been some successes in the health sector and we are striving to acquire more results,” he said.
The CM directed the health department to convene a meeting with the concerned officials and discuss the projects and priorities with them. He also called for working out a modus operandi and suggesting means to implement it.
Furthermore, the firms also proposed introducing sustainable farming in Sindh. Through a presentation, the chief minister was told that they want to introduce eco-friendly agriculture system to produce poultry, beef, catlle, goat and sheep.
The firm observed it has the expertise to develop and execute an integrated farming system with a farm-to-fork business approach to meet both domestic and global lucrative markets.
The farm-to-fork model implies that every aspect of farming is completely under control, from breeding, feeding, growing, slaughtering to packaging as well as brand marketing of the agriculture product.
The meeting was told that presently 1.8 billion people all over the world want Halal food. The Halal market is growing rapidly, they said.
