News Details

08/06/2017

Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has assured that Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Swat Express motorway would be completed and opened for public use in the new financial year

Chief Minister Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Pervez Khattak has assured that Peshawar Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Swat Express motorway would be completed and opened for public use in the new financial year. He said BRT would be completed by January 2018 in record period of six months. The provincial government has allocated Rs7.7 billion for the RBT and the Asian Development Bank would arrange soft loan of Rs. 44.6 billion for the project. He said Rs.30 billion have also been earmarked in the new budget for the Swat motorway. He said the projects for hydel power generation of 4500 mega watts have also been included in the new ADP. He said provincial energy department has started 616 mega watt hydel power generations while 100 mega watts would be also added in the national grid in the early months of the new fiscal year. He was chairing meeting of the provincial cabinet at Cabinet Room of Civil Secretariat Peshawar that approved provincial budget for the year 2017-18, budget estimates and ADP. The Chief Minister said his government focused on prioritization of education and health sector followed by other social sectors. He expressed with beaming face that his government made remarkable headways in all areas of concern and public welfare including elimination of terrorism, maintaining law & order and overcoming the energy crisis. He said his government achieved crystal clear success in this regard due to the candid steps. He said peace has been brought about and a congenial atmosphere has been established for investment in the province. Similarly he said the energy problem would also be sorted out due to indigenous efforts for the purpose and soon people of this province would become unfamiliar with load-shedding. Pervez Khattak said that the scope of Sehat Insaf Card has been extended to more 2 lakh families in the fiscal year that would increase the health coverage ratio of poor families from 51% to 69%. He said that developmental targets have been achieved that would further streamline the pace of progress in the province. He deplored that bulk appointments of government employees in the past had become burden over the government exchequer due to ill planning of the past regimes on one hand while deficiency of technical staff have been surfaced in the productive sectors in the other for which, he said the provincial government had to make a lot of efforts for the remedy. He said that over 20 thousand new employments were being created in the new fiscal year due to large scale investment opportunities and these vacancies would be filled on merit in transparent manner. He said that the graph of developmental expenditures has been considerably dropped against the salaries and non developmental expenditures due to meager financial resources of the province. However, he said that this major difference would be bridged in the new financial year due to concrete steps of the provincial government wherein record increase would be made in the developmental resources that would be gradually and consistently more than the non developmental and salary expenditures. He said that activities of the NGOs and welfare bodies have been streamlined in the province to the extent that people were being benefitted of its real fruits besides overcoming the problems of dualism of the developmental projects and anomalies. Pervez Khattak while verifying the honoraria of Rs.30,000 for poets and artists also approved the criteria of talent and poverty for this award with approval of the cabinet. He expressed the confidence that such steps would greatly contribute in enabling the poor but talented people to demonstrate their God gifted qualities in the society. <><><><><><><><>