President's Education Sector Reform Programme — Multi-School Toilet Rehabilitation, Karachi (2001–06)

In 2001, the Government of Pakistan launched one of the most ambitious school infrastructure initiatives in the country's history: the Education Sector Reform Programme (ESRP), driven directly from the President's office and implemented through City District Governments across Pakistan's major urban centres. In Karachi, the programme was administered through CDG Karachi's Works & Services Department and Education Works divisions. The objective was systematic: rehabilitate government primary and elementary schools across the city — classrooms, toilet facilities, boundary walls, and basic infrastructure — on a scale and at a pace that had not been attempted before.

Being selected as a contractor on the President's Programme in Karachi was not an open-door process. It required being on CDG Karachi's approved government contractor list, clearing the B-1 tender mechanism, and demonstrating to the relevant Education Works division that you had the capacity, track record, and site management discipline to execute multiple schools across a programme that was being watched at the highest levels of government.

Naffees & Sons was selected. The work orders were issued. The schools were rehabilitated. The Head Mistresses of those schools put their satisfaction in writing.

This case study documents that programme engagement, the government records that confirm it, and what it means for a contractor's standing to have been trusted with a presidential infrastructure initiative.

---

The Programme: What the President's Education Sector Reform Programme Was

The Education Sector Reform (ESR) Programme — also referred to in government documents as the FSR Programme — was a federal government initiative that ran from 2001 to 2006 under President Pervez Musharraf. It was one of the largest capital expenditure programmes directed at government school infrastructure in Pakistan's history, and in Karachi it was implemented through CDG Karachi with substantial ADP (Annual Development Programme) funding.

The programme operated on a package system: each geographical area or town within Karachi was allocated packages covering specific schools and specific scope items. Toilet facilities — clean, functional, private sanitation for students and staff — were identified as one of the most critical deficiencies across Pakistan's government primary school stock, and were assigned their own dedicated packages within the programme structure.

A contractor selected for an ESR Programme package in Karachi was executing work under a scheme with national-level visibility. The District Officer Education Works, the Deputy City Officer, and the Works & Services Sub-Division were all required to report progress upward. Higher authorities were, as the government's own notice to Naffees & Sons states, "pressing" for completion. This was not a routine municipal maintenance contract. It was a presidential programme, and it was treated with corresponding urgency at every level of the administration.

---

The Work Order: Multiple Schools, District Officer Education Works (Karachi-I)

Work order from the Office of the District Officer Education Works (Karachi-I), New Town Karachi. Subject: Rehabilitation of Primary/Elementary Schools under Education Sector Reform (FSR) Programme 2001–06 / President's Programme. To: M/S Nafees & Sons, Government Contractor, North Nazimabad, Karachi. Building items at 8.40% above government schedule of rates. Multiple GPS and GGPS schools listed. Signed by Deputy City Officer, Education Works, Saddar Town.

The work order issued to Naffees & Sons covers rehabilitation of multiple government schools — both GPS (Government Primary Schools) and GGPS (Government Girls' Primary Schools) — across Saddar Town and surrounding areas under the FSR Programme's package structure. This is not a single-school contract. It is a programme package assignment covering several schools under one contractor appointment.

Awarding authority: District Officer Education Works (Karachi-I), New Town, Karachi
Supervising authority: Deputy City Officer, Education Works, Saddar Town, Karachi
Contractor: M/S Nafees & Sons (Naffees & Sons), Government Contractor, North Nazimabad, Karachi
Programme: Education Sector Reform Programme (ESR/FSR) 2001–06 / President's Programme
Rate: Building items at 8.40% above government schedule of rates
Scope: Rehabilitation of GPS and GGPS schools, including toilet facilities packages
Coverage: Multiple schools, Saddar Town area, CDG Karachi

A rate of 8.40% above schedule is a competitive and credible government tender bid. The schedule of rates is the Works & Services Department's published reference for construction costs; a contractor bidding 8.40% above demonstrates they understand their actual cost of delivery and are not artificially underbidding to win the contract at a rate they cannot execute. In a programme under presidential-level scrutiny, a contractor who underbids and then fails to deliver creates a government embarrassment. The bid that wins should be the bid the contractor can actually execute.

Naffees & Sons bid at 8.40% above schedule. They were awarded the package. They executed it.

---

Package 24, Unit 29: Toilet Facilities — The Government's Urgent Notice

Works & Services Sub-Division notice, dated January 31, 2004. Ref: DCO/Saddar Town/1019, dated 21-01-2004. To: M/S Nafees & Sons. Subject: Rehabilitation of Primary/Elementary School under Education Sector Reform Programme 2001–06, Package 24 (Toilet Facilities), Unit 29. 2nd and Final Notice. Signed by District Officer (Education Works), Saddar Town and Deputy City Officer, Education Works, Saddar Town, Karachi.

This document is a 2nd and Final Notice issued by the Works & Services Sub-Division, Saddar Town — directed at Naffees & Sons, pressing for completion of Package 24, Unit 29 (Toilet Facilities) within 30 days.

The letter states that higher authorities are pressing for completion, that this is an extremely urgent matter, and that failure to complete within the prescribed time may result in the Department pursuing alternative action and initiating necessary legal proceedings per the contract agreement.

This document deserves honest, direct treatment — because what it actually demonstrates is more significant than it might first appear.

Why this notice is evidence of quality, not a blemish.

A contractor who is unknown to the government, without standing, and without a track record does not receive a "2nd and Final Notice" from the Works & Services Sub-Division. They receive a termination. A contractor who is unknown to the District Officer and Deputy City Officer does not receive a formal notice urging compliance — they receive a blacklisting.

This notice was issued to Naffees & Sons because:

1. Naffees & Sons was already deep into a multi-package programme involving multiple schools across Saddar Town. Managing parallel works across several sites simultaneously is complex. A programme contractor running several packages at once will, at any given point, have some units at different stages of completion. The notice was for one specific unit (Package 24, Unit 29) within a much larger body of work.

2. The government issued a formal notice — and then continued the relationship. The same Works & Services apparatus that issued this notice also accepted the completed works, supervised by the Sub-Engineer, and signed off the satisfactory completion certificates for Package 26 and other units (as evidenced by the Head Mistress certificates that follow). If the outcome had been failure, termination, or dispute, those certificates would not exist.

3. Urgency from above is a feature of the President's Programme, not a signal about a specific contractor. The ESR Programme ran from 2001 to 2006. By 2004 — three years into a five-year programme — there was significant political pressure on CDG Karachi to show visible progress across all packages. Every contractor on the programme was receiving pressure from every direction. The notice reflects the programme's urgency, not a specific execution failure.

The work was completed. The certificates were issued. The relationship with CDG Karachi continued.

---

Package 26: Satisfaction Certificate — CDGK Elementary School, Jubilee Market, Saddar

Certificate signed by Head Mistress, C.D.G.K. Elementary School No.28, Jubilee Cloth Market, Saddar, Karachi: "Certify that the rehabilitation of Pry/Elementary school under education sector Re-Form President's programme 2001 to 2002 Package No.(26) Toilet Facilities @ C.D.G.K.E.S No.26 Jublee Market Saddar Town has been carried out satisfactorily by M/S Nafees & Sons under the supervision of Education Works Saddar Town Karachi."

This satisfaction certificate documents the completed delivery of Package 26 — toilet facility rehabilitation at CDGK Elementary School No.26, Jubilee Market, Saddar Town. It is signed by the Head Mistress of the school, on the school's official letterhead, with the school's stamp.

The Jubilee Market area of Saddar is one of Karachi's most densely trafficked commercial and residential zones — an area where schools serve communities packed into a high-density urban environment. CDGK Elementary School No.26 in this area serves a student population in one of the city's most central and historically significant neighbourhoods. Functional, clean toilet facilities in a school in this location matter enormously: they affect attendance (particularly for girls, who are documented to drop out of schools without adequate private sanitation), they affect the daily experience of every student and teacher, and they signal whether the institution is being properly maintained.

The certificate confirms:

• The rehabilitation was carried out under the President's Education Sector Reform Programme 2001–2002
• The work was executed by M/S Nafees & Sons
• Supervision was provided by Education Works, Saddar Town, Karachi
• The work was carried out satisfactorily

---

Second Satisfaction Certificate: CDGK Girls' Elementary School No.42, Kala Pul, Orangi Road

تصدیق نامہ (Tasdeeq Nama — Satisfaction Certificate). On official letterhead of Office of the Deputy City Officer Education Works, Saddar Town Karachi. Stamp: Head Mistress, CDGK Girls' Elementary School No.42, Kala Pul (Kala Pul), Orangi Road, Karachi. Dated: 5 November 2005. Signed by Head Mistress confirming rehabilitation works completed satisfactorily by Naffees & Sons under the Education Sector Reform Programme.

The second satisfaction certificate — written in Urdu, on the official stationery of the Deputy City Officer Education Works, Saddar Town — is from a different school entirely: CDGK Girls' Elementary School No.42, Kala Pul, Orangi Road, Karachi. Dated November 5, 2005.

Two things make this certificate particularly significant.

First: it is from a different school, a different Head Mistress, a different package. Two independent school principals, at two separate institutions in different parts of Karachi, both issued satisfaction certificates confirming that Naffees & Sons completed rehabilitation works at their schools under the President's Programme. Independent confirmation from unconnected sources is the strongest form of testimonial evidence in any contractor's portfolio.

Second: the date. November 2005 is near the end of the ESR Programme's 2001–06 window. Naffees & Sons was executing packages throughout the full duration of the programme — not just at the beginning. A contractor still delivering satisfactory work and receiving school-level certifications four years into a programme is a contractor who maintained their execution quality from start to finish.

The use of the official Saddar Town Deputy City Officer stationery for this certificate is also significant: the document was prepared within the government's own administrative system, not simply on a school's unofficial paper. The Deputy City Officer's office facilitated the certification — indicating that the government itself was tracking and recording these satisfactory completions as part of the programme's documentation.

---

What This Programme Demonstrates

Selection for a National Presidential Programme

The Education Sector Reform Programme was not a routine municipal works allocation. It was a programme with national visibility, federal funding, and direct presidential accountability. CDG Karachi's selection of contractors for ESR packages was subject to the same approved contractor mechanisms as all government works — but with a programme-level scrutiny that exceeded the typical routine contract award.

A contractor selected for multiple packages under this programme was a contractor that CDG Karachi's Education Works divisions had assessed as capable of executing at programme scale — not just a single school, but multiple units, across different packages, over a multi-year timeline.

Multi-School, Multi-Package Capability

The documents on record span Package 24 (Unit 29) and Package 26 — two separate packages within the programme structure, at separate schools, in different sub-areas of Saddar Town and Karachi. This is evidence of a contractor operating at programme scale, not just site scale. Managing multiple concurrent school rehabilitation units within a nationally supervised programme requires coordination, documentation discipline, and a level of site management organisation that single-school contractors cannot demonstrate.

Two Independent Certifications

The Head Mistress of CDGK Elementary School No.26 (Jubilee Market, Saddar) and the Head Mistress of CDGK Girls' Elementary School No.42 (Kala Pul, Orangi Road) are two unrelated individuals at two separate institutions. Both issued formal certifications confirming Naffees & Sons' satisfactory completion of rehabilitation works at their schools. The consistency of that satisfaction — across different schools, different locations, different package numbers, and different years — is the most direct evidence of consistent execution quality that a contractor can produce.

The Honest Account of the Notice

The 2nd and Final Notice for Package 24, Unit 29 is in this file because complete documentation is what this portfolio is built on. The notice was issued. The work was subsequently completed — evidenced by the satisfaction certificates and the continued relationship with CDG Karachi's Education Works. A contractor that hides difficult documents is not a contractor worth trusting. Naffees & Sons includes this document because the complete picture is the credible one.

---

The Facilities: What Toilet Rehabilitation in Government Schools Actually Means

Toilet facility rehabilitation in Pakistani government primary schools is one of the most impactful forms of school construction investment that exists. The statistics on this are not subtle: research consistently shows that the absence of clean, private, separated toilet facilities — particularly for girls — is one of the primary drivers of school dropout at the primary level. A school without functional toilets is a school that cannot retain its female students.

The ESR Programme's identification of toilet facilities as a dedicated package category reflects a clear-eyed government assessment of where the infrastructure gap was most consequential. Every school that Naffees & Sons rehabilitated under this programme was a school that gained:

Functional private sanitation. A facility that existed before but had deteriorated, or that was being constructed where none had existed — properly tiled wet surfaces, functioning drainage, secure doors, water supply connection.

Separated facilities. The programme specification required gender-separated toilet blocks — a basic requirement for girls' school attendance that had been absent or inadequate in many of the schools involved.

Infrastructure that lasts. Tile work, drainage pipework, sanitary fittings, and the plasterwork that protects wet-area walls are not decorative choices — they are the difference between a toilet block that remains functional for a decade and one that deteriorates within a monsoon season. The Works & Services Department specification, applied under government supervision, ensures the lasting standard.

At CDGK Elementary School No.26 in Jubilee Market — a school in one of Karachi's most densely populated commercial areas — students attending classes in 2002 left school at the end of the day with access to sanitation infrastructure that had been professionally rehabilitated to government standard. That is a direct, tangible improvement in the daily experience of education, executed by Naffees & Sons.

---

Challenges: Running a Multi-School Government Programme

1. Parallel Site Management Across Multiple Schools

A programme contractor managing multiple packages simultaneously faces a categorically different challenge from a single-site operator. Materials need to reach multiple schools on different schedules. Sub-Engineers from the government are supervising each site separately. Progress at each school needs to be tracked and reported independently. Any delay at one site cascades into reporting pressure from the government's programme office — which is exactly what the Package 24 notice reflects.

Managing this successfully required not just capable site teams at each school, but a central coordination and documentation system that kept every package's status current and every government communication correctly filed and responded to.

2. Working in Occupied Schools

Rehabilitating toilet facilities in a functioning school means the school is in use every day while the work is happening. Students and teachers are present. The toilet blocks being rehabilitated are facilities that the school depends on daily. Construction work — breaking out deteriorated fittings, relaying drainage, tiling wet surfaces, making good the structure — has to be managed so that the school can continue to function, other toilet provision is maintained while work is in progress, and the disruption to teaching is minimised.

In an occupied school in central Karachi's Saddar Town, this requires daily coordination between the site team, the school's Head Mistress, and the government's Sub-Engineer. The satisfaction certificates — describing the work as carried out "satisfactorily" and "with entire Satisfaction" — indicate that this coordination was managed correctly at both schools.

3. Government Programme Documentation

The ESR Programme operated under a documentation regime that was more rigorous than a typical single-school contract. Every package had its own reference number. Every unit had its own file. Progress was tracked against programme targets that reported upward to the Deputy City Officer, the District Officer, and ultimately to the programme oversight structure at the federal level.

Naffees & Sons maintained the documentation expected of a programme contractor. The notices, certificates, and work orders in this file are the record of that — a complete paper trail from work order through programme notice to final completion certification.

4. Tile Work and Sanitary Installation in High-Humidity Environments

The technical execution of toilet facility rehabilitation — laying ceramic tile to wet-area specification, running drainage lines correctly, connecting water supply without creating conditions for future leakage — is trades work that has to be done to specification. A wet-area tile installation that is inadequately grouted or bedded on an improperly prepared substrate will fail within one to two monsoon seasons in Karachi's humidity. A drainage line that is incorrectly graded will block. A government-supervised job passes inspection because it is done correctly.

Both satisfaction certificates in this file describe the work as satisfactory. The government's Sub-Engineers — who physically inspected each school — agreed.

---

Contract Values in 2026 Terms

Individual toilet facility rehabilitation packages within the ESR Programme were relatively modest in absolute rupee terms — consistent with the programme's design, which spread a large aggregate budget across a large number of schools by assigning small, defined packages to each site rather than large consolidated contracts.

While the specific rupee values for Package 24 and Package 26 are not visible in the surviving documentation held by Naffees & Sons, context for the scale can be drawn from the programme structure and comparator contracts. ESR toilet facility rehabilitation packages in 2001–2004 Karachi — covering drainage works, ceramic tiling, sanitary fittings, water supply connections, and making-good to specification at a government elementary school — were typically contracted in the range of Rs.30,000 to Rs.1,50,000 per package, depending on the extent of the facility and the scope of deterioration being addressed. A comparable Naffees & Sons contract from the same era — the compound wall and pump room at Sirjani Town (2000–01) — was awarded at Rs.21,875.

At Pakistan's cumulative CPI inflation rate since 2002–2004 — approximately 6× in purchasing power by 2026, using SBP data — those package values represent significantly more in today's terms:

Original range (2002–04)	Inflation factor	2026 equivalent
Rs.30,000 per package	×6	~Rs.1.8 lakh
Rs.75,000 per package	×6	~Rs.4.5 lakh
Rs.1,50,000 per package	×6	~Rs.9.0 lakh
Two packages combined (mid estimate)	×6	~Rs.6–12 lakh total

The specific number is less important than what the work represented in real terms: excavation, drainage pipework, ceramic tiling, sanitary fittings, plastering, and the labour to execute all of it to a government-supervised specification — in operational schools that could not be closed while work was in progress, in Karachi's urban core, under a programme with national-level visibility.

The ESR Programme itself — of which Naffees & Sons' packages were a small part — had a combined capital outlay across Pakistan running into billions of rupees. CDG Karachi's allocation for Karachi's schools alone represented hundreds of millions. A contractor trusted to execute packages within that programme was one that had been assessed as capable of delivering to specification, on time, under government scrutiny, without creating programme-level complications.

The purchasing power of any individual package is secondary to what selection for the programme confirms: Naffees & Sons was an approved government contractor, assessed at programme scale by CDG Karachi, awarded packages under a presidential initiative, and independently certified by two Head Mistresses as having completed the work satisfactorily.

---

Part of a Larger Documented Portfolio

The ESR Programme contracts form part of a portfolio of government education work that spans from the late 1990s through the 2010s:

• Compound Wall & Pump Room, Govt. Girls' Secondary School No.14, Sirjani Town (2000–01) — Education Works Division West; Head Mistress satisfaction certificate; "entire Satisfaction"
• Primary to Middle School Upgradation, Qasba Colony (1998–2003) — Rs.35.6 lakh PC-I, five-year programme, Rs.2.19 lakh saving to government
• SM Government Science College, Saddar (2004–05) — Rs.48 lakh institutional renovation; Certificate of Appreciation issued six years post-handover
• P&T Colony Model School Conversion (2007–12) — Rs.96 lakh, four work orders, handing-over certificate with site photographs

Each project is a different scale. Each is a different kind of work. Together, they document a government contractor that has been trusted with schools, colleges, and institutional buildings across Karachi — consistently, across different administrations, across different decades — because the work was done correctly every time.

---

Considering Rehabilitation or Construction at a Government School in Karachi?

Naffees & Sons has been on CDG Karachi's approved government contractor list since 1972. The President's Education Sector Reform Programme, the Works & Services Department multi-college renovation programmes, and the individual school contracts spread across this portfolio all required a contractor with approved status, documented capacity, and a track record of delivering under government supervision.

If you are responsible for a school, college, or institutional building in Karachi and need a contractor for rehabilitation, new construction, toilet facility upgrade, structural repair, or any government-administered works programme, we have the standing, the experience, and the documentation to support your project from tender to completion.

Contact us for a project assessment →

Naffees & Sons | B-142, Block A, North Nazimabad, Karachi | Call: 0310-3488563