PESHAWAR, Sept 25: NWFP Senior Minister Sirajul Haq has said that the provincial government had streamlined the Dir Area Support Project (DASP) to remove backwardness in the Upper Dir and Lower Dir districts, improve life standard of their people and create more job opportunities for them.

He was speaking at a ceremony held to mark induction of new employees for the project with a view to accelerating the development work in the area here on Sunday. Later he handed over appointment letters to the new employees.

The minister said under the project, the process of improving health facilities, education, water supply and communication and developing cottage industry in the area had been accelerated during the past two years.

The DASP was launched in 1997 under which over Rs1.556 billion had been spent so far, according to a handout issued in Peshawar.

The eight-year project is scheduled to be over by June next year but the provincial government has flouted a summary for its extension.

Sirajul Haq regretted that development activities during the initial five years of the project remained slow due to wrong and lethargic policies of the past governments, because the funds allocated for this purpose could not be utilized properly. He said the MMA government would achieve development targets under the project and people of both the districts would be fully benefited.

The minister asked the newly-appointed employees to perform their duties with a team spirit.

He said the MMA government was committed to ensure supremacy of merit, particularly in new recruitments in the public sector.

He said unlike the past, appointments were being made at local and union council-level so that the employees served their people locally in a befitting manner.

He expressed the confidence that the government officials would perform their responsibilities with religious and national zeal and would continue developmental and welfare activities most effectively.

He said the MMA government would never tolerate negligence and irregularities in public affairs and officials guilty of these two offences would be given exemplary punishment.