Keenjhar Lake Resort Project - Sindh Board Of Investment ...

4.5 Eco friendly Tourist Resort in Sindh
Sindh is rich in cultural heritage varying from religious sites in Sukkur, Thatta and the Sehwan
districts to the relics of ancient civilizations like Mohenjodaro and Rannikot Fort and is marked
by its diversity and its close ties to the great Indus Valley Civilization of the third millennium
B.C. Despite all this, efforts made to acknowledge the remarkable value of this cultural
heritage as a tool for understanding history, archaeology, as well as for the promotion of
tourism in the area, have been largely ineffective.
There are also a number of natural and man-made wetlands in Sindh that offer potential for
tourism. These wetlands can act as the base upon which the tourism industry can be
developed in Sindh and its history and culture celebrated with its people and shared with the
rest of the country and indeed the world.
In order to facilitate tourism, schemes are being developed for establishing world class tourist
facilities at selected wetlands on a PPP basis. The GoS intends to provide land on long term
lease at concessional rates to the private sector to develop supporting infrastructure for
tourism activities, while it provides links such as road access and other utilities in connection
to the development sites. The role of the GoS would be to facilitate the private sector in
developing and operating these facilities in an eco-sensitive manner.
GoS has identified Keenjhar Lake in Thatta District one of its first tourism projects to be
developed on a large scale. It plans to develop a carefully selected site at the lakeside as a
world-class eco-friendly tourist resort, with a large recreational area to add to its economic
viability. Key facts on the lake are summarized below:
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Keenjhar Lake (also known as Kalri Lake) is situated at a distance of 113 km from
Karachi, 70 Km from Hyderabad and approximately 20 km north and north east of Thatta
City.
Keenjhar Lake is a Ramsar Site 1 . The Ramsar Convention applies on designated
wetlands of international importance whose conservation and preservation is supported
by “159 contracting parties” (countries).
1 The Convention on Wetlands (Ramsar, Iran, 1971) - called the "Ramsar Convention" - is an intergovernmental treaty that
embodies the commitments of its member countries to maintain the ecological character of wetlands of international importance
and work towards the “wise use” of these wetlands through national land-use planning, appropriate policies and legislation,
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Keenjhar Lake Resort Project - Project Information Memorandum