KARACHI - The master plan for the establishment of Education City at District Malir was approved by the Education City Board in its first meeting on Wednesday.
The meeting was chaired by Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at Chief Minister’s House. The board recommended the name of eminent economist and former governor State Bank of Pakistan Dr Ishrat Hussain as its member.
The chief minister lauded the master plan and said that this plan would attract the stakeholders and investors. “Future of nation depends on provision of quality education that is why the Sindh government has given top most priority to education,” the chief minister held.
Qaim Ali Shah said that government had not only taken various initiatives for standard of the education in public sector but private sector was also encouraged for this purpose. The board constituted a 5-member core committee to oversee the development works, audit and financial matters and process to recruit the staff.
The committee will be headed by Zubair Motiwala with Dr Asim Hussain and Arif fayaz who to represent the stakeholders while secretary education and member land utilisation will represent the government of Sindh in the core committee. The board also constituted finance committee comprising Provincial Secretary Finance, members of the Education City Board Arif Habib and Tariq Moeen.
Addressing the meeting Sindh Chief Minister said that Education City Board will be totally independent to take the decisions and core committee will be responsible for implementing the decisions of the board in letter and spirit. He added that there will be no interference of the government in the affairs of the Education city board.
 He assured all possible support to the Education City board from government of Sindh. 
Earlier, a comprehensive master plan was presented in the meeting and was deliberated by the members of the Education city  board. While briefing about the goals and objectives of the Education city it was informed that this project will be spread over 9000 acres of land in Malir District where over 50 reputed academic institutions upto international standard would be accommodated and over 150,000 students will be enrolled and imparted quality education through these institutions.
It was informed in the meeting that Rs 13.9 billion would be utilised for the development of infrastructure for Education City in the 1st phase.  The master plan includes provision of potable water, sewerage, parking, pedestal walking ways, gas supply, research parks, museum, recreational parks, sports facility and convention centres.
The CM directed the planners to focus and ensure the inclusion of research technology parks in the education city projects for the promotion of research which according to him was not given special attention which it requires.
The meeting was attended among other by ACS education Fazalullah Pechuho, Principal Secretary to CM Rai Sikandar, Secretary Local Government Javed Hanif, Secretary Health Iqbal Husssain Durrani, Members of the Education City Board Dr Asim Hussain, Zubair Motiwala, Feroz Rasul, Chairman SBOI Ali Arshad Hakeem and others stakeholders.