KARACHI - The progress of various development schemes of Provincial Works and Services department was reviewed at a meeting held under the chairmanship of Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah at Chief Minister House here on Saturday. The Chief Minister said that Works and Services is a very important department and road sector plays a key role in improving the provincial economy. He directed that ongoing schemes of last year under buildings component and road sector should be expeditiously completed and work be accelerated on new schemes. He called for timely utilization of funds allocated for public welfare projects with special care taken of quality and stability of the work being done. Qaim Ali Shah said that along with special packages, the work on development schemes given by MNAs, Provincial Ministers and MPAs be completed on time so that people could take benefot of better communication facilities. The Provincial Minister Works and Services, Manzoor Hussain Wassan informed the meeting that out of 586 road sector schemes, 360 are old one while Rs 9 billion have been earmarked for this sector out of which Rs 7.935 billion have been released. He said 315 roads have been improved while 18 bridges and new roads have been constructed. It was decided that 980 Km new roads would be completed by June this year. The meeting was told that with an amount of Rs 1966.450 million allocated for building sector projects, a meat, fish and vegetable market is being setup in Qasimabad, Hyderabad while two new sabzi mandis /cold storages in Karachi and one each in Mirpurkhas, Tando Allahyar and Shahpur jahanian. Besides, cattle colonies are also being established with districts-private sector partnership. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Fazlur Rehman, ACS (Development) Nazar Hussain Maher, Secretaries Finance and Works and Services and Chief Engineers Buildings and highways.