Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah on Saturday wrote a letter to Prime Minister Imran Khan saying the federal government led by Pakistan Tahreek-e-Insaf is treating Sindh in an unfair manner by ignoring development projects proposed by the provincial government.

According to reports, Murad — in a strong-worded letter — complained that the center is showing a discriminatory attitude towards Sindh even in the proposed new Public Sector Development Programme (PSDP).

The chief minister said that before PTI came into power in 2018, 27 schemes with a total allocation of Rs23,387.21 m were part of PSDP for Sindh during the fiscal year 2017-2018. However, after Khan's government, the number of schemes was reduced to 22 with the allocation of 14,266.72m in 2018-19; to 13 schemes of Rs8.508.85m in 20019-20; to 10 schemes with the allocation of Rs8,302m in 2020-21. Only six schemes with a total allocation of Rs5,069.14 million are proposed for the fiscal year 2021-2022.

“As you note above, a grave injustice is being meted out to the people of Sindh ever since the current federal government came into power in August 2018,” Murad wrote in his letter.

The PSDP is yet to be approved by the National Economic Council (NEC) — a constitutional forum established under Article 156 of the constitution — when its members meet on Monday, 7 June. Sindh's CM pointed out that under Article 156(4), NEC was to meet at least twice a year. However, the forum has only met once in 2019 and once in 2020. Murad alleged that this is a clear violation of the constitution and since the prime minister is to call the meeting, the responsibility lies with him.

Talking about communication division, Murad Ali Shah said in the proposed PDSP 2021-22, there were only two schemes with allocation of 7,111.95m for Sindh under communication division. And of these two schemes, one is Sehwan-Jamshoro road costing a total of Rs14 billion, of which 50 per cent had been provided by the provincial government back in April 2017.

The road has yet to be completed despite the fact that four years have been passed since the inauguration of the project, he said and added that lives lost due to incompletion of road are responsibility of the federal government.

In his letter to Khan, Shah urged the premier to review the proposed PSDP and give Sindh its fair share. The federal government is yet to react to the matter.