The Sindh government is planning to invite private investors to develop Hawke’s Bay beach with three-star hotels and huts for which it has cancelled leases and is going to have to evict and demolish 254 huts.
This strip of beach is KMC land and stretches 5km and approximately 387 acres. It is flanked by beach owned by KPT and the Board of Revenue. The beach has an A, A1 and S series. A series is plots facing the beach and the others are behind it.
The plan is to for the Sindh government’s Public Private Partnership or PPP unit to undertake the development, confirmed DG Khalid Mehmood Shaikh. The government will hire a consultant to prepare a feasibility plan for the beach’s development. It is a lengthy process and will take at least six months before they can implement anything, he said.
The PPP unit in the Sindh government works on getting private investors to build public infrastructure.
This is different from a government paying entirely to build say, a motorway, on its own. Under the PPP mode, a private company pays for and builds a motorway and gets its money back by charging cars to use it. The government oversees the motorway building and behaves like a watchdog.
In the Hawke’s Bay case, the government will hold competitive bidding and prepare costing and a study for the project. It would then publicly issue tenders to invite private investors. Next, the PPP policy board would review proposals and make a choice.
The objective, according to Shaikh, is to provide people services like those you will find at beaches in other countries.
