0
LAHORE, June 13: Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi announced on Friday a three-year development plan in various sectors, saying his government was adopting a new concept of progress to allow benefits of prosperity to immediately trickle down to the people.
Briefing newsmen about the development strategy he said his programme would help improve the priority areas including education, agriculture, irrigation, industry, production and law and order, greatly benefiting the people at large.
The chief minister praised President Gen Musharraf and said due to his policies the national economy had been strengthened and the political governments enabled to function smoothly. “His policies, including the devolution of power plan, would continue,” he said.
He said the province had disallowed no-confidence against district Nazims through a law in the assembly. “This limit is till June 30 after which we will decide what to do with it. But, definitely, we will not want destabilization of any council,” he said.
The main features of the plan included providing missing facilities in educational centres like giving free textbooks up to class V and recruitment of teachers, improvement of irrigation system and power generation, enhanced allocation for district governments, reforms in the health sector and police, adoption of an investment-friendly policy and retirement of high-interest federal loan with soft foreign funding.
The chief minister said development activities would be planned and completed with the participation of the district governments and government machinery.
He said the government wanted to take along the opposition which should also cooperate for the implementation of welfare-oriented projects. The policy of boycotting assembly sessions was of no use and it was the duty of both the government and the opposition to obey the orders of the speaker.
He said the LFO was not a controversy as all the opposition parties had taken part in the election conducted under it. There was no political instability and the system would continue uninterrupted, he added.
EDUCATION: Mr Elahi said the government would spend Rs21 billion on providing missing facilities in government educational centres during the next three years. These included proper furniture, new buildings, more teachers and restoration of their lost dignity, active teachers training programmes and incentives for students and parents to arrest the drop-out rate.
He said the government had got profiles of educational institutions in every district with the help of their respective district governments to ascertain missing facilities there. The development activities would be conducted in accordance with these profiles, he added.
Mr Elahi said the government would strengthen private educational institutions but also give incentives to parents to send their children to public schools. There would be a school council in every village to monitor provision of missing facilities and encourage students. Every council would consist of area notables and elected representatives, he said.
He said the experiment of giving a tin of cooking oil to a girl attending school for one month had been a success and would be extended throughout the province. Teachers would be included in decision-making to give them a sense of honour, he maintained.
LOCAL GOVTS: Mr Elahi said as against Rs60 billion given to the local governments last year, the provincial government was allocating Rs65 billion for them in the next financial year.
In view of the poor economic conditions of the tehsil municipal administrations, the government had decided to earmark Rs2 billion for paying the outstanding utility bills of those showing improvement in their tax collection system. It would also spend Rs8 billion during the next three years to provide clean drinking water to people through the TMAs, he said.
HEALTH: The chief minister said the government would spend Rs10 billion on health sector. Besides the autonomous health institutions, it would strengthen and upgrade district and tehsil hospitals so that loads in cities could be reduced.
He said a modern cardiac centre would be built in Multan at a cost of Rs1 billion. The pilot project of recruiting doctors at an enhanced pay scale in three union councils in Rahim Yar Khan was a success and would be extended to all over the province.
The government was improving emergency wards of every hospital and had declared treatment of patients of crime related events necessary before the registration of cases. The nursing sector was being upgraded and a health insurance scheme introduced in Sialkot as a pilot project.
AGRICULTURE: The government had already done a lot for this sector. Banks had reduced interest on loans and the government had decided to give subsidy on power for agriculture tubewells besides introducing flat water rates, Mr Elahi added.
He said because of the government policies wheat growers had for the first time obtained adequate price of their crop. The government would spend Rs2 billion on lining canals and upgrading about 10,000 water channels during the next three years.
JUSTICE: Special funds were being allocated for improvement in the jails for women and children. The three-year Rs6 billion programme included changing traditional police culture and establishment of check posts on highways every 20kms, Mr Elahi said.
He said 10,000 policemen were being recruited for these posts. Every post would be given latest arms, equipment and vehicles, making crime within a radius of 20km its responsibility.
He said the government would provide better facilities to the policemen and to the families of those killed in encounters. These included financial assistance to their families, free education and recruitment of their children. There would be health insurance scheme and fixed duty hours for traffic police.
HOUSING: Mr Elahi said houses would be built for the government employees.
He said the government was introducing housing schemes with the help of the federal government and commercial banks. It was reducing registration and mortgage fees to the minimum to facilitate construction of houses. It was also planning to distribute 200,000 five-marla plots among poor people.
The government would build Lahore’s ring road either by itself or through a private party.
He said a new Rs400 million road would be built from Nadeem Chowk to provide a short-cut to the new airport. This would be built in league with army and carry a toll tax.
Mr Elahi said Rs 0.75 billion underpasses would be built on The Mall, Lahore. There would be mega projects for big cities and a BoT based Lahore-Kasur road.
He said allocations for special children were being doubled. The government intended to build a fully-equipped stadium for them and another exclusively for women.
FINANCE: Banks had reduced interest rate as a result of the government policies. This would benefit the housing industry and the provincial government as well.
He said the province had decided to retire high-interest federal loans through soft loans from the Asian Development Bank and the World Bank, saving an annual Rs2 billion for development projects. It was also prepared to repay Rs33 billion to the federal government through soft local bank loans but the latter was not agreeing to it. If this was okayed, the province would save another Rs4 billion to Rs5 billion every year.
MONITORING: He said the government was evolving a policy to monitor the efficacy of projects after their completion. There would be monitoring cells in every department which would prepare monthly reports.
Then, the planning and development board would monitor their development projects from all aspects. “I would also monitor all projects’ on-ground performance every after three months,” he said.
Mr Elahi said a think-tank had been created in the rehashed P&D to evaluate every project right from its planning to execution and utility for people. Top people from the private sector would be inducted into it to speed up development process.
He said the governance would be performance-based and the development projects initiated only to fulfil the needs of all areas.
GOOD GOVERNANCE: The chief minister said without good governance the government could not achieve the desired results. So far it had not relaxed rules to benefit anyone. It was making laws only in the assembly and intended to spend its energies on positive activities rather than politics of victimization.
TEVTA: The government was earmarking Rs500 million for TEVTA which would run industrial-demand-driven training programmes. The government would introduce more technical education schools, he said.
INDUSTRY: He said the government was introducing reforms for the benefit of industry on June 24. Under the plan, all laws hampering investment would be changed. The government would also create more industrial estates and improve the existing ones to create investment-friendly atmosphere in the province.
Replying to questions, the chief minister said the government planned to produce power through plants on existing canals.
He said job opportunities would be created through a boom in the housing sector and development activities.
He said the government was seeking foreign assistance after fulfilling all legal requirements and permission from the federal government.
Mr Elahi said the government would conduct development activities through the district governments and was taking steps to promote Punjabi language.
